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BGonline.org Forums
Catching on?
Posted By: Jake Jacobs In Response To: Catching on? (Bill Riles)
Date: Monday, 20 July 2009, at 2:49 a.m.
Let's face it, the most interesting positions always turn out badly for one of the players. Sometimes they've made a mistake, sometimes they have been punished by the dice, and sometimes both. I love it when I can feature a brilliancy that that works out well, but put yourself in the shoes of the player on the receiving end: the praise I give to the victor is in some small measure salt in his wound. Now imagine that you have done something truly horrendous, say missing the game-winning hit at DMP in the finals of a tournament. You'd better love salt, because I guarantee it will not only make the front page of the backgammon journals, but probably be engraved on your tombstone.
"Mommy, who is Jake Jacobs? It says on his tombstone he died in 2047; that's almost 200 years ago."
"He's the guy who hit, then put two of his own checkers on the bar at the Masters Final in Novi in 2013."
As for Bill Davis, I have known him for 30 years and can attest to a couple of things. First, his intentions are almost invariably good. He really, truly doesn't mean to give offense. Second: the man can be jawdroppingly clueless. I recall some years ago Ray lost his "cool" when he made it to a major final for the first time, and Bill ran a headline along the lines of: "Fogerlund crushed." A group of us spent half an hour trying to convince Bill that "crushed" had pejorative connotations. (Note: Bill never did believe us.) And the story of what Bill told the ten-year old boy admiring Neil's Lamborghini has become part of backgammon's folklore.
So, Adam, remember the words of The Great Mouthpiece, William Fallon, to the New York City newsmen: "I don't care what you write about me boys, as long as you spell my name right!"
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