FIBS Board backgammon forum
Backgammon => Backgammon => Topic started by: Arctic Jack on April 06, 2015, 08:54:00 AM
After looking through the list of World Backgammon Champions on Wiki it seems no one has held on to their title since Tim Holland did it back in 1968 when it all bagan. I know their is luck in Backgammon but I thought over a large series of games that luck would generally be mitugated. The world champion's list seems to speak against that theory. It looks like a list of lottery winners with rare exceptions.
I would have thought a great Backgammon player would have had his name scattered over that list, even if it wasn't year after year.
The format (large draw, single elimination), the fact that there are now many players quite capable of beating the best and the fact that even a very strong player only wins about 60% of his matches accounts for this. Given all that it is quite remarkable that in modern times there have been any repeat champs at all. Quite a few of these also have been losing finalists.