April 1st Gammon Empire will bring us again a hefty 50k dollar prize pool tournament. The direct, hassle-free buy-in is $175 but you can also go and try entering through a number of cheaper Sit & Go, Freeroll and regular satellite tournaments. Read on for the dates and details.

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So the first million dollar backgammon tournament, PartyGammon Million, is now finished. The winner was Andreas Martens (Märtens) from Germany, who beat his Danish opponent Lasse Hjort Madsen in a very tight final with points 23-22. Märtens received over $600,000 and the unique backgammon watch designed by Marc Rouah for his victory. Madsen, as the runner-up, received $144,000. The tournament was a success with a few interesting surprises and plenty of glamour.

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The long awaited PartyGammon Million tournament is soon about to be kicked off. With one week to go, a number of backgammon big name players have already signed up and the final places are soon to be filled in.

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Last night Play65 offered again real entertainment with a $50,000 tournament. It was all very exciting down to the last minute where a player with low rating took it all away in the final - not quite what most people were expecting.

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Backgammon has a new World Champion: Philip Vischjager from The Netherlands. Vischjager, a first time player at the world championship, defeated the 1979 world champion Luigi Villa from Italy in a tough final. Vischjager was leading throughout the match and despite Villa dramatically coming even in the end to 19-19, Vischjager eventually won the match 23-25 and took away the €75,000 prize money. Winning Backgammon congratulates Philip on his great victory!

The 31st Backgammon World Championship was held at the traditional Fairmont Luxury Resort in Monte Carlo, 10-16th July, 2006. A total of 335 players participated in Championship, Intermediate and Beginner flights with more than 200 players going for the world championship. The elite of backgammon players was naturally present at the tournament, such as Peter Hallberg, Lars Bønding, Luigi Villa, Mike Svobodny and Paul Magriel.

Backgammon revival

Backgammon is making a comeback after a couple of decades of low profile and the 2006 Backgammon World Championship was an excellent opportunity to introduce the game to a wider audience. This year there was an increased prize pool of €240,000 (nearly $300,000) and extended television coverage. The tournament was broadcasted live on television and you can expect the tournament highlights on DVD to hit the shelves later in September. This will hopefully attract new people to play Backgammon, which is expected to be the next big online game after poker.

Who wants to be a world champion?

Players who think they could make it in the World Championships can actually test their theory, as Play65 offers the possibility to play against Peter Hallberg, who is the 2004 Backgammon World Champion. Peter is playing every weekday evening for an hour, so now all world champion wannabees can test their skills against a top level player without travelling to Monte Carlo. I’d estimate that the chances of winning Peter vary from slim to none, but those who do win him can already start planning a trip to the next World Championships…

Ladies and Gentlemen, PartyGammon has entered the building. Only a couple of weeks after PartyGaming launched it’s latest addition to the Party family, PartyGammon.com, they announced the first Million dollar tournament in Backgammon’s history: PartyGammon.com Million.

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Sit & Go
The most commonly played type of online Backgammon tournaments is sit & go tournaments. Just like the name suggests, these tournaments begin as soon as a predefined number of players has registered for the tournament. Usually sit & gos are for four players, but tournaments of 8, 16, 32 and even 64 players are available.

Buy-in prices for the sit’n'gos vary from as little $5 to $200. As always, the bigger the buy-in, the bigger the pot.

Rating Limited Tournaments
Most Backgammon sites keep track of players performances. Play65 for example gives player a score of 0-2000 depending on how well or badly one does against other players. Rating limited tournaments take advantage of these rankings. Like the name suggests, they are only open to players with skill rating lower than a set limit. This means that players in these tournaments get to play against other players of equal skill level.

Swing Tournaments
In the beginning of a swing tournament each player receive equal amount of chips. Each player in the tournament is randomly matched against one other player for a single game. Player who wins a single game receives an amount of chips from the losing player equal to the tournaments CPP, Chips Per Point. This continues, until until one of the players has accumulated all the chips. To keep the pace up, CPP is raised every few minutes.

Satellites
Satellites are normal tournaments with a scheduled starting time, but they don’t have cash prizes. Instead the winners - usually a certain percentage of the players - win a free entry to a tournament with an expensive buy-in. There is usually several satellites available for bigger tournaments.

It is easy to understand why satellites are popular. $50.000 tournament may have a buy-in price of $175, but satellite to the same tournament may have buy-in of 11$.

Normal tournaments aka Events
Normal tournaments, or “events” as they are called at some sites, have a scheduled starting time and a set buy-in price. Some may have a “guaranteed” price pot, which means that at least the guaranteed sum is divided among the winners. Otherwise the collective buy-in sum of all players minus the sites rake is divided among the winners.

Star tournaments
When you play for real money at Gammon Empire, you receive stars for each dollar you played with (it doesn’t matter if you lost or won). Every now and then there are star tournaments available. These tournaments are free - only buy-in is a certain amount of your stars.