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Rehashing "Luck"

Posted By: Daniel Murphy
Date: Thursday, 17 June 2010, at 6:25 p.m.

In Response To: Rehashing "Luck" (Jason Lee)

I gather that Ralph takes some pride in his backgammon accomplishment in 2002 (and rightfully so, since it was one) while being fully aware that Fortuna was smiling upon him (so to speak) that year. I probably have similar feelings about my own on-line victory in 2000, although by that run of luck I became merely the FIBS 2000 Fall Tournament Champion, which does not have quite the same ring to it as "World On-line Champion." Of course I only had to win seven matches in a row, not nine, which might be claimed to mean that I was not as lucky as Ralph!

Backgammon has no global authorizing body but we do all honor 31 (or 34) years of tradition (was the first "Monte Carlo world champion" Joe Dwek or Luigi Villa?) and acknowledge the winner of the Monte Carlo World Championship tournament as world champion. As far as other "world champions" go, I imagine most of us would say there are none, and many of us don't care.

To my mind the paragraph on one page fully explains the short phrase on the other two pages, but even so

" ... and won the Institut fur Strategiespiele's "World On-Line Backgammon Championship" tournament on MSN Zone in 2002"

or

"... and won a "World On-Line Backgammon Championship" tournament in 2002"

or even

"... and won the "World On-Line Backgammon Championship" tournament in 2002"

would be better, I think, than:

"was the world champion backgammon player on the internet in 2002"

With most details removed, the phrase reduces to:

"... won an on-line backgammon tournament in 2002." At which point I think I might just change that to "and plays backgammon."

As backgammon players we know that luck is part of the game, but it's interesting how a phrase like "including three [wins] against world-class players rated in the top-100" serves only to emphasize not our skill but how lucky we were to win. Compare, for example: "GM Anand won nine straight games, including three against world-class players rated in the top 100." We surmise that GM Anand outplayed his competitors. But in backgammon, although we might surmise that our hero played well enough to take advantage of what luck came his way, we don't surmise that he outplayed his opponents, but outrolled them.

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