Adorable Story #37: a very special Backgammon tournament — Part 2

The chronicle of the first (and probably last), most lucrative, Backgammon floating tournament

“Backgammon is a sport, not a game”

(This is Part 2 of the Adorable Story #37. Part 1 can be found here)

---

If you aren’t subscribed yet, hit the subscribe button below to receive the Adorable Stories every weekend, directly in your inbox:

---

Vietor vs Martyn

At the end of the game against Jack Vietor, Philip Martyn quickly stood up from the table and rushed out of the room. After a minute or so, Martyn came back and shook hands with Vietor.

“It must be a terrible feeling for a pro like you to lose to an old California hacker like me,” Vietor said with a smile.

“Absolutely galling is what it is,” replied Martyn. “Staggering.”

In the back of the room Esmond Cooper-Key steadied himself against the subtle movement of the ship.

Martyn was a tall and fit man who looked athletic, but his hair had turned a mix of gray colors. He had been part of an Olympic bobsled team and used to play rugby while he was in college. Martyn also enjoyed driving fast cars, and liked to exercise by running in a park in London, and sometimes he ran with his friend Jackie Stewart.

Backgammon is a sport, not a game

When Martyn talked about backgammon, he described it as a fierce and ancient struggle that may not be immediately obvious to someone who is just casually watching the game.

“Backgammon is a sport, not a game,” Martyn said after he had calmed down a bit from his loss to Vietor. “It has contact, violence, one-to-one competition like boxing. Good players tend to stay in good physical shape. People used to think you had to stay up all night and drink and smoke to be a backgammon player. That’s silly. One can think much more sharply when the body is fit.

“This is not an intellectual endeavor like bridge, where the players are usually ashen gray and cigarette stained, and it’s certainly not like chess. Backgammon is all out in the open, full of stingers, very aggressive. I went bonkers when I lost to a softer player like Vietor. Backgammon has had the image of rich, bum sportsmen and very private clubs, and some of these sportsmen want to keep it their own private affair, but I want to see backgammon become widely popular. It’s not hard to learn. I’ve got no flair for math. Even a beginner can play well if he doesn’t let his ego defeat him. The doubling cube is what makes it so extraordinary.”

Martyn envisioned a future with professional backgammon leagues:

“The tension of an international match would be terrific,” Martyn said, “and all there for the audience to see, millions of people watching and criticizing the moves.”

The Baron

While Martyn was speaking, Esmond Cooper-Key headed to the ship’s casino to try to recover his lost money. However, his attention was diverted by his friend, the Baron, who had consumed a considerable amount of wine and decided to remove his clothes in the middle of the casino.

The Baron, incidentally, was not really a baron. He was a young businessman from London who joined the trip aboard the QE2 to be with his friends playing at the Dunhill backgammon tournament.

As a playful act, he falsely claimed to be a baron when filling out the booking form: surprisingly, this led to him being given a fancy dressing room, a refrigerator, and a huge luxurious room without any additional cost. The ship’s staff addressed him as “Baron” and he was invited to dine in the smaller and more exclusive restaurants reserved for First-Class passengers.