The Punta Cana Poker Classic ended Sunday, 13 November. This year, a backgammon tournament was to be held prior to the start of the Poker event. World Backgammon Association president, Chiva Tafazzoli was enlisted to direct the high-roller event, advertised to have a “$100,000 guaranteed prize-pool.”

It didn’t happen.

Here are Mr. Tafazzoli’s own words as to what went wrong at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in the Dominican Republic.

Advertised as a “High Rollers’ Classic,” the Punta Cana backgammon tournament (7–9 November at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino) ended up being a fiasco. Having remained silent to player comments posted at blogs and forums, it’s now time for me to take a stand. I owe the backgammon community an explanation and clarification of the unfortunate facts.

THE PREPARATION

About 10 months ago, someone I had successfully worked with a few years back on the Portuguese Open contacted me. Meanwhile, that person had taken the next professional step and changed companies. That company, which actually is a conglomerate of various legal entities (namely TruePoker, BetCris, BetDSI, Bookmaker, and probably a few others all somehow linked to each other and sharing ownership), had organized a successful poker event in 2010 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

The poker event was to be repeated in 2011—bigger, richer, and better. Some, including the owner of that company (being passionate backgammon players), decided to add a backgammon tournament to their poker show and my liaison contacted me to direct and organize it. Various concepts were considered before a $5,000 entry high-stakes event with a guaranteed prize pool of $100,000 was finalized.

I obtained a “go” for this project from my liaison, signing as Marketing Director of TruePoker. I then started to advertise the event, contacting potential players. I regularly gave my contact person updates on predicted attendance, warning him that although there was a decent chance that we would pass the benchmark needed to break even, if this didn’t happen, an overlay would be needed to meet the advertised prize pool guarantee. I was informed that an eventual overlay of $20–$30k would not be an issue.

Unfortunately, and typical for backgammon tournaments, only a few players firmly committed to participate with others said that there was “a good chance,” or it was “quite possible” that they would attend.

ARRIVING AT THE VENUE

After shipping over the equipment and lining everything up, I flew to Punta Cana on 5 November to check-in and to set up the playing room. For me, it had an excitement similar to the “PartyGammon Million” held in the Bahamas back in January 2007.

The Hard Rock in Punta Cana, which had no connection to the poker or backgammon tournament other than being the venue, is a huge 5-star, all-inclusive resort. The hotel features a staff of 3,000 with approximately 2,000 beautifully designed rooms and suites, each having a balcony, private Jacuzzi and a funky touch of “rock.” A huge white sandy beach, numerous bars, more than a dozen restaurants of all kinds, countless landscaped pools, and one of the biggest casinos in the Caribbean put this hotel in the running for best-ever backgammon venue, especially considering the affordable single room rate: $207/night including $1,500 in hotel credit to be used for the spa, massage, excursions, golf, and even the casino.

Because the venue is so huge, with many other events such as concerts, shows and activities going on, it was quite tough to find a playing room that met my requirement standards. Space was not an issue but the location and some privacy from the noise of music was. I searched from one end of the complex to the other until I found the right location for backgammon to happen.

As registration closed on 7 November at 4:30 pm, the attendance numbers clarified. 16 players had entered, out of which 11 were tournament regulars and five were recreational players—nowhere close to the skills of the usual suspects, but not afraid to come up with a high entry fee to have fun and to compete. “How juicy,” one would be tempted to think!

THE CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

Unfortunately, for varying reasons, a few players could not make it to the tournament even though they had planned to attend. The break-even point of 23 players could have been reached if those players had made it on time and some kind of reentry structure was in place (which I had agreed to do).

About ten minutes prior to the start of the tournament, other representatives of the backing companies informed me that the guarantee was waived and that was the order from their superiors who were not present and impossible to be reached. “Take it or leave it, there is nothing we can do about it,” was the wording that I remember.

Feeling sick to my stomach, I immediately postponed the event start and engaged in heated discussions and negotiations, pointing out the previous agreements. But where I was, contracts, binding communication in writing, legal steps and other measures do not help on the spot when you face such a situation shortly before the start of the tournament and you have to deal with the new facts as they are.

It quickly became clear that there were too many people involved with too little transparency of their roles. It seemed that backgammon was being used as a scapegoat for internal political fights within the companies involved.

I tried to pull off the best deal I could for the players. Within an hour, I had options for them to choose, knowing that the backgammon tournament had to finish by 9 November at 4:00 pm in order for those who had tickets to the Las Vegas Open to make it on time, and also that we didn’t overlap with the start of the poker main event:

 Option A. We run the tournament as announced and it is what it is, starting 7 November and ending 9 November, with a Main and a Fighters´ Bracket, a prize pool generated from the 16 entries at $4,500 + X rebuys at $2,500 in the Fighters´ Bracket and no guarantee.

Option B. We start the tournament 8 November with four additional players who would check-in by then and act as horses for the company + X rebuys as a single elimination format to be completed on time, again with no guarantee.

Option C. We start the tournament on 8 November without the four horses as a single elimination format, to be completed on time, but we comp each playing party with five nights of their hotel stay.

The players quickly rejected Option A. They immediately received their entry fees back and said they would discuss the matter and return 8 November with their decision.

We met the next day at 11:00 am and the four horses from the company were lined up and paid for. Unfortunately, but for various reasons which I understand perfectly, four of the backgammon regulars who initially had signed up to play, decided to back out, so we started the tournament with an imperfect number (perfect for the bracket) of 16 players, out of which seven were recreational players, two were more serious players, and the rest were top players (including Falafel Natanzon, Michy Kageyama, Bob Wachtel, Paul Weaver, and Paul Magriel).

The random and public draw was done and after three rounds, a recreational player, George “Skip” Chonopolis, found himself in the finals against world backgammon giant Falafel. In a Major upset (with a capital M), Skip prevailed. Welcome to the wonderful world of backgammon and congratulations to both.

Even though I had taken a big financial hit, I decided to divide the money provided to me to pay my expenses and pay each participant $200. It made more sense to give everyone a little something rather than to increase the prize money of the four money-winners.

THE AFTERMATH

I am not happy. I know that the players are not happy and I fully understand their frustration. That includes even those who cashed. There are a lot of bad feelings and a certain bitterness, even in the sweetness of victory, for the money-winners.

This is not the way I run my business. This has never been the way I did anything during the past ten years in which I built the World Backgammon Association brand with my name on it.

There was no reason for me not to trust the person I had previously worked with in a very pleasant way. But even contracts and agreements in writing could not save me from the facts that were presented to me on the spot.

I could have kept my mouth shut and made up reasons to postpone the start of the tournament until 8 November, gambling that the initial 16 players, plus four late comers, coupled with a few reentries would get me to the $100k figure. But I decided to reject that option. It didn’t match up with my understanding of correctness, honesty, and integrity, and it simply isn’t me. I decided to be straightforward and come up with options and potential solutions, knowing that I would take the hit financially and reputation-wise.

I deeply regret what happened and apologize to the players, the backgammon community and to my friends who must feel disappointed. My own disappointment is beyond imagination. The 10th Anniversary of the World Backgammon Association was supposed to be all glitz and glory. Instead, it goes down the drain with apologies and shame largely due to the actions of other parties.

THE OUTLOOK

At this stage, there are no clear plans about my future involvement in backgammon, as I am still too emotional to make a decision. I know there are those who harbor bad feelings towards me; but I also know that others value what I have given to the game I love over the past decade—a game deeply connected with my heritage and roots.

I will bring the ongoing European Backgammon Tour 2011 to an end in Cyprus. I have committed to run three ABT tournaments in the USA in 2012: the US Open in January (San Francisco), Florida Championships in May (Fort Lauderdale), and the Golden Gate Open in August (San Francisco). I have signed contracts for these events and I will honor them.

I will be running two tournaments in Cyprus again in 2012 and help my partners from Istavder in Turkey to grow their events. They have very recently been able to create a Turkish Backgammon Association that is extremely valuable in growing the game. Other than that, no further backgammon events are planned. I need some time (and distance) from this unfortunate event to be able to rethink my involvement in the game.

Overall, and to put a backgammon-spin on the situation, I played my A-game but faced quite a few anti-jokers and lost a big match. Will I leave it behind and start the next one? I don’t know yet.—Chiva Tafazzoli, President, World Backgammon Association