Backgammon rolls back into fashion

I learned backgammon from a precocious child on an aircraft in the mid 1970s. I would occasionally fly as an unaccompanied minor as well and on this flight I was sitting next to what was the prototypical North American brat. He had a backgammon set and during that flight I learnt to play the game. Moreover, rather satisfyingly, I beat him. As soon as I landed I pestered my aunt to buy me a set: a splendid creation in café au lait leatherette and synthetic velour.

Ever since then I have loved the game -- even though I do not play it particularly well (unfortunately mine is neither a patient nor mathematical mind). I don't know whether to be delighted or slightly disappointed that after quarter of a century it seems to be making a comeback.

For me backgammon has been about the brittle sort of glamour encapsulated in Ian Fleming's description of Count Lippe in his 1961 novel Thunderball. Lippe, plainly a cad, is an habitué of 'the Ritz bar in Paris, the Palace at St Moritz, the Carlton at Cannes -- good at backgammon, polo, water-skiing, but with the yellow streak of the man who lives on women'.

Backgammon was the game of the 1960s and 1970s, a time when the world was learning a new way to be rich. Remember the jet set?

From the Clermont Club to the Croisette in Cannes, from Palm Beach to Puerto Banus, the air echoed to the rattle of dice and shouts of exasperation. Backgammon seemed to suit the times -- fast, portable and decadent. Perhaps it was the increasing importance of the Middle East in world affairs, perhaps it was the gambling mania that had gripped high society in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s as fortunes carefully assembled during the 19th century by diligent Victorians were frittered away at illegal gambling parties and then at the tables of the newly legalised casinos. Whatever the reason, the 'cruellest game', as it was known, was everywhere -- especially on bookshelves.

I have books on backgammon from that period and the imagery aside -- swollen period typefaces and photographs that belong on the cover of a Harold Robbins novel -- they are fascinating to read for the insight they give into the times. For instance Backgammon the Cruelest [sic] Game, published in 1974, is larded with gnomic quotes from Clausewitz, my favourite of which is, 'Defence in itself is a negative exercise, since it concentrates on resisting the intentions of the enemy rather than being occupied with our own.' The Clermont Book of Backgammon (1975), with a cover showing a large bow tie designed like a backgammon board, sees backgammon used as tool of geopolitical analysis; in it Archbishop Makarios is summed up as 'a really terrible backgammon player'. Enough said.

I also remember backgammon making it into the movies, my favourite being in the opening sequence of a gloriously kitsch heist movie/jet-set gore-fest called Killer Fish starring Lee Majors, Margaux Hemingway and one of the Berensons.

I mention all this because the game has changed, like everything else, with the advent of the internet. Although it has not reached anything like the fanatical level of poker (nevertheless the 2005 backgammon championships in Monaco were filmed as a four-part television show), computer technology has altered the game in a radical way and accounted for a surge in popularity.

Backgammon has always had a slightly nocturnal edge to it; apparently this is why so many of the good players are Scandinavian, as it helps to pass the long winter nights, and the twilight world of the internet is perfect for the obsessive player who wants to minimise the human contact element to concentrate on the interplay of mathematics and chance. For the player who wishes to improve his or her game there are two excellent computer programs: Jelly Fish and Snowie.

These are excellent tools, but for me backgammon is first and foremost a stylish game. I love dressing up in a dinner jacket to go and play in a tournament, even though I tend to get knocked out in round one, and I am very particular about the backgammon boards I use. A few years ago I made the pilgrimage to Max Parker (www. geoffreyparker. com), who continues his father's business making grande luxe games in an old piggery on the Essex-Cambridgeshire border. It was a revelation to learn about the stones specially designed by a Harvard maths professor and the 'slip agent' used to coat the playing surface in order to speed up play. One can play equally well on a magnetic set bought at an airport or on a computer screen, but what I like about the game is the sense of occasion.

Mark Birley once explained to me about the backgammon set he had instructed Hermes (Hermes. com) to make for him. It was fitted with a tapestry playing field. I had seen many backgammon sets, but never one in tapestry. I asked him why he had chosen this surface and he replied with what was in retrospect the obvious answer -- that dice falling on tapestry made virtually no noise and would allow the players to enjoy their game without unwanted noise.