My father-in-law is a backgammon fiend. Having learned the game from him this past Thanksgiving, I was eager to play with my wife as well. I surprised to find that she did not know how, but I soon understood. I am myself the son of a highly competitive (he accused me of cheating at Candy Land when I was six) bridge player (it occupies almost all of free time), and despite the fact that my entire family plays, I do not. Fathers, it seems, often have difficulty passing on their passions.

After much cajoling, I convinced my wife to give backgammon a try. The rules were easily explained and before I knew it, we were off! Our first game was fairly bloodless... between her natural caution and my reluctance to ruin the game for her, no blots were sent to the bar and we both began bearing off at the same time. Fortune favored the cautious, apparently, because she won while I still had 5 checkers on the board.

Our next game was almost as bloodless... timidity was our by-word, but I did manage to swat one of her blots and keep it off the board for a couple of dice rolls. We both began bearing off at roughly the same time, but I'd had an extra turn or so to position my checkers in my home quadrant and, aided by some good rolling, managed to carry the day.

By this time it was late and time for bed, but I was pleased to see that she'd enjoyed the game and was looking forward to playing again!

On a side note, we'd been playing on a backgammon set I'd gotten for Christmas. It was a wooden set from Amazon that I thought would be nice. Sadly, however, the checkers are quite insubstantial and both die rolls and board jostling send them careening about like crazy. My father has a set that is fabric with leather pips, with stone checkers... I'd like to shoot for something like that.