The World Backgammon Championships have been held in Monte Carlo every year since 1977 with a brief one year spell in the Bahamas in 1978. It was also held in the Bahamas in 1975 and 1976 and prior to that in Las Vegas from 1974 back to the very first tournament in 1967. The very first champion was Tim Holland and an indication of how hard it is to defend your title comes in the fact that Holland won in 1967 and 1968 and he was the only man to ever defend the title. Holland is also the only three time world champion but there have been a few double world champions.
Recently there has been Jorgen Granstedt of Sweden who won in 1999 and 2001. Prior to that we had Germany’s Michael Meyburg who won it in 1998 and 1991. Bill Robertie the noted author also won two titles in 1983 and 1987 but the title has proved very difficult to win twice. I think that this just proves the level of variance within the game and a player although needing to be a great player to win it, also needs to be very lucky to win the event. This is not too dissimilar to large MTT poker tournaments where it is very difficult for any player to defend their title because you are basically asking someone to get lucky two years on the trot in the same tournament and that really does take some doing.
