On a recent winter afternoon, I sat outside a posh hotel ballroom with Masayuki Mochizuki, the best backgammon player in the world. Mochy, as he’s known, was fresh off a victory in the tournament taking place in the hotel, the skitter of dice still audible as we spoke.
Backgammon is one of the oldest games still played. Egyptologists smashing into ancient burial tombs discovered pristine copies nearly identical to today’s game. Its modern history is more vibrant, booming in the 1970s, acquiring a cocaine-and-disco sheen, and played by Tina Turner, Pink Floyd, Hugh Hefner, and James Bond. The game, an intoxicating mixture of luck and skill, became a popular theater of gambling and panache.
