The intoxicating smell of a Spanish omelet caused me to amble into the kitchen where I saw my Uncle Johnny sitting comfortably at the table and he said, “I will bet you $10 I can beat you in Backgammon”. Of course since there was money at stake, I had to do it. When money is involved you just cant back down. I said, “I’m going to beat you! But first can you tell me the rules?” “Well the most important rule is that you have to get all you pieces to one end of the board and you roll 2 dice to move them but if you roll 2 of a kind you can move 4 pieces instead of 2. And then if any of your pieces land on any of mine that are all alone than mine go to the start. But if there are 2 or more pieces on one of my spots on the board you can not land on it or go on it." Round One Uncle Johnny had to explain to me how to set up the board and play the game. The directions seemed absurdly complicated. The board is also very weird it looks like a bunch of triangles
Perhaps that is why no one under the age of forty plays this game anymore. I did really poorly because Uncle Johnny was telling me about all the “new” rules as we were playing and he kept insisting I couldn’t do what I was setting up to do. I stated truthfully, “What do you mean I can’t move my piece there? You never said I could not move my piece there. You are cheating.” “No I’m not cheating you are just bad at this game.” Uncle Jonny replied. I don’t know exactly how to keep score but I know I lost to Uncle Johnny by a lot.
Round Two I was finally beginning to get the hang of it. I learned the special moves to make with different rolls and I was sure I could beat Uncle Johnny this time.
“As I said, I am amazingly perfect at every thing I do. The only reason I lost to you was because I have not played ever. But I bet it is like riding a bike. Once I get the hang of it I will kill you.” I said confidently. When you roll doubles, you get to move four pieces that same amount of spaces. Or when you roll a 2 and a 3 you can use it to move two different pieces onto the same square to prevent them from getting moved back to the start. Like I said before, it’s a complicated game. We started betting. We started at $20 then doubled down and I owed him $40, then $60. The game was getting more and more fun. Uncle Johnny won round two with $60 added to his pocket.
Round Three. Now it was a game of will’s: mono e mono, perfect (aka me) vs. a normal person (Jonny). I had to recover my $60 and then some to make it worth my time. I started with a $40 bet. Game three was my best yet. I was about to win and then I rolled a 1 and 3 and had to leave myself open to an assault. Uncle Johnny showed no mercy, laughed and said, “I am going to win your $80. I will buy 80 candy bars or maybe I will buy jelly beans, I might even go out to have a nice dinner and bring you some of my leftovers.” He said. I replied saying “tough luck.” He started telling me how he was going to spend all my money. In the end he won because of a silly move I made. Consequently I owed him 220 dollars. I had always hated the idea of playing Backgammon but because Uncle Johnny taught me to bet on the game I had so much fun although I lost so much money. by the end of the week I owed him 700 dollars just from playing backgammon. Even though I am not forty, I can’t wait to play again. I hope somehow he doesn’t remember to collect on the bet. But if he tries I will have to play another game of backgammon to try to earn back all my money.