Backgammon

"Backgammon is like life—anything can happen at any time. You can be way behind on points and catch a couple of good rolls and win. You can be way ahead and catch a couple of bad rolls and lose.

Unlike chess, rolling dice ensures that there’s plenty of chance in backgammon, and I like working the odds.

Chess people…hardly ever seemed to be enjoying themselves, even when they were winning. I liked winning, but losing didn’t spoil my day, and my slacker attitude annoyed serious players and kept me odd man out, as usual.

Then a buddy of mine taught me backgammon…Backgammon hit my spot.

(Anthony Peyton, Porter News Review)

"In backgammon, you can play 10 games, not play well, and win. So you think you are great but you have made a great number of mistakes. Tragically, life is closer to backgammon, because you can play a perfect game and lose!

In chess, when you play like an idiot, you always lose, so you learn. Frankly, I think backgammon is a much more interesting game, much harder to learn."

(Christos Papadimitriou of the C. Lester Hogan Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley on Dr. Dobb's)