677. Can Backgammon Save Us from Ourselves?

23:11At least they used to be before we came onto the scene. It struck me that those kinds of decisions are very, very similar to backgammon decisions and decisions that were modeled. One of the great breakthroughs in the modeling of games and backgammon in particular was that when you focus on the proper objective, which in backgammon is giving yourself the highest probability of winning the match. and in football if you apply the same metric which is how do i make a decision that gives me the highest expected outcome of a win not maximizing yardage not assuring i get some amount of points on a particular drive when you shift that objective in that metric it really opens things up and you start to see that these risk-averse decisions are actually quite wrong we set out to build a model that could actually measure it.

24:09We did this by building a fully customizable simulation model that was built on a lot of NFL empirical data. My partner, Chuck Bauer, who is also an experimental physicist who did a lot of research at Indiana University and worked for NASA, he and I put our heads together to build a model that could simulate NFL games from start to finish, running clock, penalties, the whole thing. We had a hypothesis that coaches were giving up quite a bit. It turned out after we started studying it more deeply that they were worse at it than we even thought they were. They were giving up even more. Then we got excited.

24:49We were like, it's time to start knocking on some doors. And so how much is your model or versions of your model used in the NFL today? I would say it influenced probably just about every team, some more directly, some indirectly. We licensed to about 12 NFL teams, Most famously, we worked with the Philadelphia Eagles during their Super Bowl run. They used it religiously. We had buy-in from top to bottom, from Jeff Lurie, the owner, to Howie Roseman, the GM, to Doug Peterson, and also with the Kansas City Chiefs. When you see Andy Reid on the headset during a game, he's speaking to Mike Frazier up in the booth, and Mike Frazier was consulting our models.

25:29Let me back up and make sure I understand. And for a Philadelphia Eagles fan, let's say, or a Kansas City Chiefs fan, their Super Bowl victories over the past several years, you're saying, are derived in some part from the application of backgammon theory? Yes, absolutely. When the Eagles adopted it, we worked very closely with their analytics staff. They had some of their own internal models, but they were basically calibrating everything off of ours because it was a lot more sophisticated. The real similarity of football to backgammon is that you score in these unusual increments, where in games like baseball, you're basically trying to produce runs and trying to keep your opponent from producing runs.

26:15And that correlates very, very well with win probability. Football's very different because you have a decaying clock and you score in different increments. So the utility of points changes dramatically based on the state of the game. And that's something that has been very, very well modeled in backgammon. Coming up after the break, how did that modeling happen? And just how wild was the backgammon scene in the 1970s and 80s? I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We will be right back.

27:22We'll see you next time. Tasting Muscle Milk today. Available in stores nationwide. Muscle Milk. Protein for all. Carter's has your family covered for every summer first. First steps, first swim lesson, or first sleepover. Our clothes help kids and parents have their best summer ever, thanks to comfy design and easy dressing details. Generations of families have trusted our must-haves for babies, toddlers, and kids. Designed to shine season after season. Visit carters.com to shop the latest styles or find a Carter's store near you. Why have I asked my HVAC guy I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube?

28:03I was so amazed at how we replaced our air ducts. I knew I could trust him to change Pop Pop's tube. I think we should call a doctor. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com.

28:19Backgammon is the best one of all the games. You could also say it's a game of economics, but then economics is also kind of life. That again is Mark Olson. In addition to being a top-ranked player, he co-founded and runs Backgammon Galaxy, an online platform for playing and studying the game. Backgammon Galaxy was an idea that came up between me, Sandra Lailoff, and Mochi back in 2018. Mochi and Sander are basically the two biggest Bagamon legends in the world the idea was simply just to have a unified grand Bagamon site because it was kind of lacking we just set out to do it a bit of naivety there me and Sander came from the world of sports betting basically I was a quant in sports betting for the last 10 years prior to that in 2019 or so I went full time on Bagamon Galaxy trying to get this project up and running we thought that we were going to be a money gaming site because that was kind of like the world we came from, but it wasn't really a good business plan.

29:20It's a very regulated market. We had trouble really getting off the ground. In the meantime, we had a YouTube channel. It became the biggest backgammon YouTube channel quite fast. We realized that the opportunities in mobile gaming and social gaming were actually gigantic. The market is really, really big. So we pivoted and we started creating a product and we raised some money. And we had the first real version, I would say, of Backgammon Galaxy launched in 2022. How many players are on the site? And how do you make money? We have about 220 ,000 users. We have a subscription. And then we have some social coins.

29:58You can't withdraw them or anything for real value. It's just purely in the game. But you have users purchasing these coins as well. How much money do you actually make, if you can tell me? I don't think I'm in a position to reveal that. We are still in a competitive space. But it's a business that is at least aimed toward profitability or no? Yes, it is. I mean, we've raised money a couple of times and we keep expanding. Our team is now 25 people. Half of them or so are developers and the rest are dealing with customer support, YouTube, social media, all kinds of stuff. Live tournaments. We own the world championship.

30:34So once a year in Monte Carlo, we host the world championship. Let's spend a couple minutes talking about this nice point that you raise about backgammon as an illustration of economic thinking. In what ways do you see those parallels? Let's talk about trade-offs that you face in every decision. Because backgammon is a multi-dimensional game where all the variables, they are entangled. You can't just say all else being equal. It doesn't exist because every time you change one variable, all the other variables change. There's constantly trade-offs to be made. Sometimes they are macro. I have a decision here between a priming game plan or a blitz attack.

31:11Sometimes it's micro. Do I promote that back checker one pip over there, which slightly improves my racing chances? Or do I want to split it with the front? What about ideas like opportunity cost and sunk cost and decision-making under uncertainty? Do you actively factor in those ideas as you're playing, or is it more like they're just humming beneath the surface. Sunk cost, I think any professional investor or games player at a high level knows you should not dwell too much on sunk cost. It's in the past, focus on making the best play. Opportunity cost comes in a lot in backgammon as well, especially when you're choosing between game plans.

31:53If you pursue this one game plan, there's an opportunity cost. It affects the optionality of going to another game plan later. Decision making under uncertainty. That's literally what you do on every single move in Backgammon. There's actually several levels to it. We do have complete information of the game. We can see all the pieces. Nothing is hidden. But we don't know the upcoming dice rolls. The future is uncertain, just like the universe. Life is uncertain. The world is uncertain, even at a quantum level. In Backgammon, we learn to deal with it. There's a psychological aspect to it. Playing games, it trains you for being a more robust person.

32:28It rewards hard work. And especially backgammon, if you're lazy and think you can win, you're going to lose. If you are reckless with your decision making and you're taking degenerate risk, you're going to be punished immediately. So even for kids, you know, I want to teach my son to play backgammon for that reason. I've heard you say that you want to teach your son to play backgammon not only for the sake of the game, but because gambling itself is a really good way to learn about the world and yourself. Can you just talk about that? I've heard you say that most people look at gambling as pure vice and you have a different view.

33:05Exactly. So let's start by making a distinction. My distinction is that if you're betting on something like a roulette table, then you have no control of the outcome. It's purely gambling. I don't see any good in that. But if you're talking about backgammon or to some extent also poker or to some extent also sports betting where you can get an informational advantage, you can analyze the game in a way that is better than the market or even when you see the rise now of the prediction market sites. So I do see that as a virtue more than a vice, that again, hard work is rewarded. There's instant negative feedback on your bad decisions.

33:43You harden your personality and your mental abilities to deal with stress and misfortune. We've played backgammon or a similar variant, basically, as long as we've had dice. It has that advantage over other games, that it simply evolved into this perfect equilibrium style of game, where it's not too long, it's not too short. It has the right amount of luck to skill ratio. It's just a very balanced and perfect game. Backgammon is indeed one of the oldest games in the world. In various forms, it has been played continuously in the Middle East since 3000 BCE. During the Crusades, it became a popular gambling game in Europe.

34:23Richard the Lionheart of England and Philip II of France issued a joint order banning the game for low-ranking soldiers. Dan Rather, in a 1978 piece for 60 Minutes, rattled off these and many other backgammon facts as he discussed the rising popularity of the game. In the United States, it is played everywhere. In the CBS cafeteria, for example. in modest rooms like the Bar Point Club on New York's 14th Street, where the winner of the weekly tournament can win a few dollars. And it is played in elegant private clubs where the rich and famous gather to dance and drink and play.

35:06It was basically Hugh Hefner who was responsible for Backgammon becoming a fad in the 1970s because he proposed this kind of hedonistic, sophisticated, glamorous lifestyle that involved lots of consumption of alcohol, some drugs, lots of sex, and anything that looked privileged and sophisticated. That is Bob Wachtel, my partner at the Los Angeles meetup. Wachtel got a PhD in philosophy, but as a profession, he chose gambling. He was a world-class backgammon player and a backgammon writer, chronicling the scene, and it was quite a scene to chronicle. I first learned to play in Toronto in 1977. I went to discos, and there were backgammon sets in discos, backgammon tables.

36:06I played a guy there, and the guy wrote me a check on a napkin. I said, what's this? He said, don't you know anything? He said, a check is just a piece of paper that the bank issues, but I'm writing my account number right on this napkin. So this is just as good as a check. If you went to tournaments, you'd find the most zany collection of characters. There were lots of people who pretended to be royalty. There were snobs of different kinds and posers and drifters and people who were cheaters and lots of people were phonies, but none of them were very good at backgammon. And most of them believed that they were much, much better than they were.

36:50So they'd be willing to play anyone. In the early 70s, backgammon was a place of magical thinking. And people believed that it was a game of luck. They didn't do any work, most of them. But there was some work you could do. and there was some calculation. There were ways of learning the game, which most of the populace didn't participate in at all. Did you do a lot of that kind of work yourself? I didn't do as much as some other people. If you really cared to learn specific elements of the game, you would set up a position and play it many times. People weren't shy about expressing their opinions in those days.

37:32You would make a move and one of your compatriots would say, that's ridiculous. How can anybody do that? And immediately you could challenge them to propositions. And those were situations you'd set up where each person would get their turn to make their move and the game would be played out to the end. And then you'd turn the board around and allow the other person to make their move and the game would be played out till the end. you'd log a whole bunch of data not all of it was that valuable because if you didn't play these games well in subsequent moves it didn't prove very much but there were some very simple situations especially in bear offs at the last couple of moves of the game where the game could be played out in 10 seconds and you could log hundreds of games and sometimes if you had an advantage, you could log hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

38:35And some people, we should say, wrote not one but two books just about the Beroff situation. Yes, that would be you? Yes, but only a tiny segment of the Beroff. The first volume, I decided to name it In the Game Until the End, because back in the day at the Mayfair Club in New York, The marks or pigeons, when they got in these positions, would say, at least I'm in the game until the end. There was a lot of mockery of the pigeons. I always liken it to the vista that the pioneers in America encountered when the bison covered the plains of the whole country. And you could shoot them at will. They were always there for the taking.

39:23That was what it was like in the early 70s. And the pigeons or marks or suckers or whales or whatever you want to call them, were they the same cast of characters or did you have to refresh the pigeons? There was an inflow of new pigeons, but the hustlers of the day would husband them themselves into their little flocks. There were some hustlers at that club who really weren't good players at all, but they had flocks of even worse players, much worse players, who they'd shelter from people like me. You're supporting yourself. This is your profession. Yeah. Can you give some insight into your earnings?

40:05I'm guessing you don't have a nice statistically sound career earnings calculation. No, I never kept records, but there were lots of times when I was not paid, when I was cheated. There was lots of stuff along the way that happened at that time. I once played this Coke dealer, a woman Coke dealer, and she paid me in drugs. I bet she did, yeah. A little bit of money and a Gucci sweater that her friends had boosted from a shop in Rodeo Drive. And was that a kind of typical scene for a guy like you? Would we call you a hustler? I wouldn't call myself a hustler, no, because to me, a hustler is someone who feigns incapacity.

40:51You didn't hide your ability? No, not at all. Not at all. How did you develop and keep your opponents playing you for money when you were plainly better? There was this great club, the Cavendish Club in Los Angeles. I could go there every night and have a game. What were the stakes? They used to play$10 or$20 a point, which would be like$75 or$100 today, something like that. So you could come out of there with several hundred dollars a night easily, maybe a couple thousand, right? Sure, sure. And overall, just to give a sense of the luck versus the skill, overall in a given year, do you think you were ever down for a given year?

41:30Oh, no. No, no, no. Oh, no, he says confidently. So, Mark, who would be the ideal Mark? Like, would I be really good because I'm, like, decent, but maybe good enough to think that I'm better than I am and I'll just keep coming back and giving you my money like an ATM? The ideal customer is someone who's very wealthy and enjoys locking horns with someone who's also good enough to give them the great challenge. So how good were you at the time? By today's standards, I was terrible, but I was one of the better players around. Things got much more difficult. The neural networks had a great effect on Backgammon society.

42:13That's an interesting conundrum. I'd love you to explain when the neural networks came along and you could actually identify what were good moves and what were bad moves, and you could acquire what's called an error rate or performance rating. What was that like for you? For me personally, it was a joy because I had a stack of note cards a foot high of positions I'd never been able to figure out, even rolling out. I tried and tried and tried, and all of a sudden, I could get the answers. It was bliss, but it was very annoying in the sense that the bad players could see how bad they were. And it more or less killed the money action in Backgammon.

42:59The worst players all of a sudden realized how bad they were. There was a lawyer I played who lived in Marin County, had plenty of money. I played him for five years or so. I must have won almost every time we played. And at the end of those five years, and this is before the neural networks came along, he explained to me, he said, look, Bob, you have a slight edge on me, but we're basically at the same level. People could just live in that kind of delusion for years and years. But when the neural networks came along, Not only did the worst players realize they were bad, but if they weren't willing to work and learn themselves, they'd fade away.

43:47Before the neural nets, nobody really knew what the best plays were. That's Mark Olson again. Backgammon Galaxy is built atop a neural network that plays the game at a superhuman level. I asked him how this technology came about. In the 90s, AI algorithms with reinforcement learning was invented. A guy called Gerald Tesaru invented a program called TD Gammon. This was the first neural net to play backgammon really well, stronger than even the best players in the world. Where did this come in the development of AI play? This was basically around the time when Deep Blue were playing against Kasparov.

44:25Gerald Tesaru used backgammon as a case study for his new AI algorithm. And Bagamon was such a perfect environment for that because it's a multidimensional game where all these dimensions interact with each other because there's so many trade-offs and the variables are entangled. Yet it's still a small enough universe that you can just reproduce data as much as you want. You can simulate the games. And it worked exceptionally well. And when you say it worked, that means that in any given moment in any game, there is an optimal move, essentially, correct? Let me explain a little bit how these AI algorithms work.

45:03You have, let's call it a play agent. That's the agent making the moves. And then you have a learner. We call it the value function in machine learning. So you're training your value function as a function of the results that the play agent decisions are making. Basically, it's a self-learning algorithm. The best move is simply the move that has the higher value in the value equation. Because we have the computer engines, the neural nets that more or less solve the game, the level at the top is so high nowadays that it's much more a game of not making mistakes. Does that take some of the fun out of it?

45:44I don't think so. If you are a really high-level player, what is your motivation? For me, it's this mastery achievement thing. I'm not playing against you. I'm playing against myself.

46:00Here's how Bob Wachtell described it in his book, The Backgammon Chronicles, A Prose Adventure on Tour, Volume 1. Backgammon has evolved from a model like that of soccer, basketball, or tennis, he wrote, where it is the fantastic inspired shot that will be the object of awe for years to come to a sport like gymnastics or ice skating or diving, where the entire goal is to perform a flawless routine, a perfect 10, i.e. a zero error rating. I went back to Wachtell to talk about this evolution. You know, when we started this conversation, you talked about the 70s and 80s as this golden era of backgammon.

46:42there was a lot of action and a lot of excitement and the play was starting to get a lot better. But how would you compare the current era? I mean, it must feel very, you know. Tame. How do you feel or how do you describe the current era where there is a lot of competition, a lot of tournament play? I assume there's a lot less of the kind of gambling action that you're describing here. Yeah, right. It's much more normalized. Is it boring? Well, I mean, it's not nearly as exciting, I would say that. I think it is undergoing a minor renaissance. I don't think it could ever reach the manic levels of the 70s, because the whole playboy lifestyle was what got people engaged then.

47:26And they were all sort of buying into this vision of the good life, which people are a lot more cynical now and aware of the pratfalls and pitfalls they can encounter. How pleased are you with this mini-Renaissance? Do you think it's good for the world? Definitely. I am very pleased with it. I think it's great. Coming up after the break, we meet a leader of the backgammon renaissance. This is Freakonomics Radio. My name is Stephen Dubner, and we will be right back.

48:03Everyone's talking about protein lately, but how do you actually get enough of it? Muscle milk. Muscle milk has a great tasting new formula with no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or added colors. It's high quality, complete protein designed to support healthy muscles with fewer ingredients than the previous formula and 26 to 42 grams of protein. For when you're stuck in meetings or need a post-workout recovery. Available in chocolate, vanilla cream, cookies and cream, and strawberries and cream. Try the new great tasting muscle milk today. Available in stores nationwide. muscle milk, protein for all.

48:32Carter's has your family covered for every summer first. First steps, first swim lesson, or first sleepover. Our clothes help kids and parents shine thanks to comfy design and easy dressing details. Visit carters.com to shop the latest styles or find a Carter's store near you.

49:00your back nationwide no long-term contracts but don't be nervous about losing service text now scotch your back that's their sense of purpose no matter what comes next you've got free talk and text with the text now app download it today wireless plans require the purchase of a sim card visit text now.com for terms and conditions

49:26The Backgammon Program XG, or Extreme Gammon, was released in 2009, and it became the go-to software for serious players. Last year, it was bought by Travis Kalanick, a founder and former CEO of Uber. He is also a Backgammon obsessive. Kalanick is expected to invest significantly in the site with modern AI and machine learning. it definitely feels like we are in the middle of a backgammon renaissance. We've seen two different things. That's Mark Olson again. One is the rise of online backgammon with Backgammon Galaxy and other backgammon apps on the phone. And the other thing is the rise of the social clubs all across the United States right now hosting these incredible social events where people come just to play backgammon.

50:12I think it's amazing. It's something we haven't seen before. I don't know how big it can be, but it's very exciting, especially New York City. Bagamon Club, Remington Davenport, is doing a great job. Hi, it's Remy. Remy, hi. Hi. How are you? I'm doing so well. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm dying to know why you're doing so well. I mean, I'm very happy about it, but. I just had like an amazing weekend. I treated myself to a present. It was a backgammon purse and I've been eyeing it for so long. You can like open it and it's a full board and it comes with the pieces. And oh, and I got my backgammon table delivered that I designed.

50:51So this was just like a very big backgammon girl weekend. So how did you first get into the game? My parents taught me how to play. I never really wanted to play with them. I had a group of six girlfriends in middle school and we played backgammon every weekend. We were very competitive over everything and nothing. when we played backhand and we were very physically abusive. We would flip the boards and throw dice at each other. We were so crazy. We would just look for anything to compete over, but it was all in good fun. But now I'm like, good sportsmanship and good etiquette is the only thing I believe in.

51:28But don't look at me when I was playing as a kid because I was a monster. Were you playing for stakes, for money or anything? No, nothing. Bragging rights.

51:41A few years ago, Davenport founded the New York City Backgammon Club. To put it simply, it's a social club to play and learn backgammon. It's really focusing on community and bringing people together over this concept of being offline. And at the heart of it is making new friends and meeting new people and pushing yourself to want to improve. I also started Gals Who Gammon. When I go to these tournaments all over the world, I've noticed it's really about a 10 % women attendance. In 2024, Davenport attended her first Backgammon World Championship in Monte Carlo. She says it was life-changing. Oh, my God.

52:24Walking into that room, I was almost in tears. There's 300 people in this room obsessed with the same thing I'm obsessed with. Like, how freaking cool is this? I'm building a community in New York, but then there's this community of U.S. tournament players. These people in the U.S. have been playing with each other for decades. When they go to tournaments, it's a reunion. But then on top of that, going to the World Championship, I've made friends from all over the world. This makes it sound as if, and please don't take offense by this, but this makes it sound as if you are backgammon and backgammon is you and there is no space between the two.

52:58There is no offense there. Backgammon is my life and that's it. There's nothing else going on, you know. What do you see yourself as with Backgammon in, I don't know, pick your interval, two years, five years, 50 years? The basics is just growing the game in the United States and then definitely global. I'm starting to expand to other cities. I'm encouraging people from around the world to get into it, start their own club, do their thing, practice more, play online, play in person, whatever. Backgammon in this country seems to have a craze every half century, right? In the 1920s, it was big. In the 1970s, and maybe the craze is really going to be that big again now.

53:40No, we're in it. We're on the path. The reason it's having a surge now, and I started my club three years ago, I can put a lot of my success on the change of society, which is people want in-person experiences. They want to be offline. They want to get off dating apps. They want to have experiences. I don't know what happened in the 80s for it to die down, but the reason it's coming back now is there is a big change in society of wanting to get offline and connect with people and be human again. So I started NYC Backhandman Club kind of as a joke. I knew 10 people in New York. I was just looking for a place to play.

54:18I had a full-time job and I started hosting an event every week in 2023 and people started coming. I'm like, whoa, this is so crazy and I don't have a social media or marketing background. I'm a sales gal. What were you selling? A lot of bullshit. I was always in startups. It's not even worth talking about. So I started hosting these events and I'll never forget the first event that I had 50 people at and I just went home and cried. I didn't even know 50 people in New York. Then I was like, okay, this is it. I left my job after a year of starting the club because I just felt like I could not be one foot in the door and one foot out the door of trying to grow backgammon.

54:54I host events Sunday through Thursday night. I'm killing myself still doing events. Does your club have a dedicated physical space? No. New Yorkers are tough, you know. People don't go below 14th. They don't go on the east side. They don't go to west side. They don't go to Brooklyn. I'm trying to just do as many events as I can for as many people. And people will love to try new places. Remy, the first time we met, you were helping run this national tournament in Jersey City. I see you have some kind of role in the U.S. Backgammon Federation. I'm on the board of directors. I'm trying to make it more approachable for new people.

55:34My job in general is I'm trying to bridge this gap of club players in the U.S. and the tournament world. Can I tell you about my Backgammon League? Yes, please. It's one of the things I'm most proud about. The first season, we had 64 people. I built a whole website and a schedule, and every team has their own home bar. You either play home or away. I keep track of individual scores and team scores. And it's tournament play. Five people from each team compete. You play in a seven-point match if you're an intermediate and nine points if you're advanced. Everyone gets a league shirt, comes with their registration.

56:11And then I give out prizes and trophies and stuff. Now we're in the fourth season, and this season was actually 235 people, which was really cool. I'm sure there have been events even that you've organized where some character comes who just ends up being whatever, a drag. Nasty. Creepy, nasty, whatever, in some way. How do you handle that? It's a great question because I'm very, very hardcore and I have a zero tolerance for bullshit. This sucks to say, this is not the case for everyone. I've met a thousand wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people, but there can be one bad apple that really screws your entire tournament experience.

56:49And you may never want to come back because a man was super misogynistic for whatever reasons. Maybe you beat him, maybe just simply for sitting down at the table. These are things I've experienced. If there's consequences for bad behavior, then we can start to change. For decades, a lot of people were like scared that backhand man wasn't growing, so they weren't necessarily kicking people out. If you set the standard of like really welcoming and loving and fun, it sells itself. When poker started being played online, there was a whole new, not just generation, but a whole new style of poker player who had never played anybody else in person.

57:25Then they began showing up to tournaments and sometimes they would win. Are you seeing people who get very, very, very good outside the established realm of playing in person? There's definitely people that come to my club being like, you know, I've only been playing on the computer or on my phone and I'm a little nervous. I'm like, don't even worry. We're all nice here. There is this world of playing online and then trying to get into tournaments. It's so different. What's different about tournament play? In tournaments, sometimes the rooms are absolutely ice cold. Sometimes they're so hot. There's so much stimulation.

57:55There's smelly people. There's like just so much crazy going on and the stamina of just sitting there and focusing game after game.

58:09I recently stopped in at a small tournament that Davenport was hosting on a Monday evening at a hotel in Lower Manhattan. My first opponent was a friendly guy named Nick, maybe in his 30s. It's nice to meet you. I don't think we can fit here quite. Do you have a board? I have a board, but it's pretty big. I have one little smaller, yeah. That's a good size. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, that'll work. Again, good luck.

58:37I have to say I was feeling pretty good about my game. I'd had that solid showing against Mochi. In my pairs match in L.A., Bob Wachtell and I had beat Frank Frigo and Melissa Shin. I'd even taken a game from Mark Olson when we played on Backgammon Galaxy. But Nick beat me. So that knocked me out of the main bracket. I dropped into the consolation bracket and I promptly busted out of that one as well. But I don't regret a minute of it. Nick and I even made a plan to play squash sometime. It's nice to make a new friend. Thanks, Backgammon. Here's Remy Davenport again. Poker and chess are so much bigger than Backgammon.

59:19They want to get Backgammon as mainstream. Backgammon is just way more social game. You play with one hand and there's a drink in your other hand. Like, that's the game. And what does mainstream Backgammon look like? I'm going to have a tournament at MSG. I've been talking about this forever. I've been putting it on my dream journal or a manifestation board, whatever it is. I don't know how long that will take, but we're going to do it. You may think that Madison Square Garden hosting a backgammon tournament is absolutely impossible. Until a few weeks ago, the idea of the Garden hosting the New York Knicks in the NBA finals also seemed impossible.

59:54I thought back to something Bob Wachtel had said when I asked him, what's so great about backgammon? It's very entertaining. It's entertaining because the things you imagine are impossible happen, and things that you would swear are unlikely can happen just as often as that. I also thought back to something Frank Frigo said when I'd asked him the same question. I think of backgammon as a masochistic mindfulness. When I'm playing, I'm not thinking about anything else. Hours could go by. I forget to eat. I forget every other thing going on in my life. I'm going through all of these, you know, ups and downs and twists and turns.

1:00:40You're getting these little dopamine rushes. You know, you roll a good number. Something goes well. It goes poorly. You feel alive. I'm actually experiencing something.

1:00:54My big thanks to Frank Frigo, Bob Wachtel, Remy Davenport, Mark Olson, Melissa Shin, and Mochi for all the good backgammon talk and even more for all the good backgammon. We filmed some of the games, so you can head to our Instagram to check it out. You can find and follow us at at Freakonomics and at Stephen J. Dubner. If you are ever looking for a game, let me know. Our email is radio at Freakonomics.com. Coming up next time on the show, New York just became the latest state to allow assisted suicide or medical aid in dying. We hear from Kathy Hochul, the governor who made that happen. She was inspired by the death of her mother.

1:01:38To watch her lose her own voice physically and her vision and ability to communicate, it was just heartbreaking. We also hear from a death doula about the American way of dying. I cannot live my life to the extent of fullness until I make friends with death. And we hear from an opponent of the new laws. I think it's bad medicine, bad ethics and bad public policy and a grave mistake for society. That's next time on the show. Until then, take care of yourself. And if you can, someone else too. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Renbud Radio. You can find our entire archive on any podcast app. It's also at Freakonomics.com, where we publish transcripts and show notes.

1:02:26Special thanks to Melissa Shin, Evan Manners, Mark Sparrow, Dylan Endyke, Dennis Haggerty, Sam Anderson, and to Amy Cervini for her voiceover. This episode was produced by Tao Jacobs with help from Zach Lipinski and Augusta Chapman. And it was edited by Ellen Frankman. It was mixed by Jake Loomis with help from Jeremy Johnston. The Freakonomics Radio network staff also includes Dalvin Abouaji, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Alaria Montenacourt, Mandy Gorenstein, and Pete Madden. As always, thanks for listening.

1:03:01I hate making ugly moves. It's your Danish sense of style that won't allow you. Looks like I have a physical reaction to this play right now.

1:03:13The Freakonomics Radio Network The hidden side of everything

1:03:41Available in chocolate, vanilla cream, cookies and cream, and strawberries and cream. Try the new great-tasting Muscle Milk today. Available in stores nationwide. Muscle Milk. Protein for all. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well.

1:04:15Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.com. In the U.S., there's a break-in every 26 seconds. But when intruders step near, SimpliSafe Home Security steps up. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, U.S.-based live agents help deter break-ins. SimpliSafe, no long-term contracts. Save 50 % on your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com slash sxm or with promo code sxm. Outdoor deterrence requires a SimpliSafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at$49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information.

1:04:50Tennessee 2012.