PartyGammon Million
PartyGammon.com are the sponsors of the first ever $1 million backgammon tournament.
This was held at Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in The Bahamas on Sunday, 21 January 2008. Old foes greeted each other as friends and discussed the backgammon event of the year.
The week began with free cocktails on the Caribbean then backgammon legend Kent Goulding introduced the Calcutta Auction, which raised over $21,000.
A special 8-team doubles event kicked off the week’s backgammon matches on Sunday. Winners snared $40,000.
The main action kicked off on Monday, with all the players gunning for the massive winner’s check- the field contained 25 of the world’s top 32 players.
The 1st and 2nd round matches were 15-point games. Experienced tournament players lost to online backgammon players who had qualified at PartyGammon.com.
The line-up was whittled away from 128 players to 32 by the end of Monday. These players were entered into the secondary tournament with a hefty $240,160 prize pool.
On Tuesday, we were down to just 8 players. The matches were now 17-point affairs and the 8 remaining players were cashed up, but were playing full speed for their slice of the $960,000 left in the prize pool. The secondary event was being played alongside.
By Wednesday evening we saw some tense semi-final action as the $600,400 first prize was up for grabs. Finally 33-year-old German Andreas Märtens and 36-year-old Dane Lasse Hjorth Madsen bagged their seats in the final.
Thursday’s final was pure backgammon class.
Märtens looked to have bagged the loot when he lead 20-11 in the 23-point game, but Madsen cam fighting back. He got back to 22-22, making the ultimate game live up to its name. And after an exceptional backgammon battle Märtens grabbed victory from the jaws of defeat, and scooped the world’s largest backgammon prize to become a backgammon superstar.
He´s from Bielefeld, Germany, was understandable bowled over by his win. “It doesn’t get better than this. I hoped I had a chance, but never really thought I could win,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do with the cash... I’m certainly going to play more high-stakes backgammon, but I’m also going to buy my girlfriend a car.”
For his part, Madsen was gutted. “In backgammon, you can be almost there, and then all of a sudden be far away from the winning post again. It makes the game thrilling. I’m disappointed, but I’ll be back.”
A PartyGammon.com spokesman said: “Remarkably, we’ve seen online qualifiers beat the world’s best players at backgammon.
Click here to play at Partygammon