S.A.M.B.A. - the mother of procrastination

No prisoners

As self confessed gamers we wanted to find a good travel game to shorten long train journeys and eat up waiting time in airport terminals.

After looking at a few possible contenders we finally found our perfect travel game - backgammon. It's quick to set up, requires no shuffling and is played within a contained board (raised edges, so pieces don't fall on dirty floors).

The other obvious choice was cards, but it's too fickle; unless perfectly shuffled might cause accusations of unfair advantages. Besides, despite the thousands of possible card games out there, we somehow always just end up playing shithead.

So we picked up a cheap, plastic, faintly magnetic backgammon set in the highlands of Sri Lanka and have since then enjoyed some fierce battles. When flipped over it's a chessboard too (and as such, it also has the option of drafts: the backgammon pieces on the chessboard side).

Backgammon is a game of both skill and luck and therefor perfectly suited for trash talking about who's had more of what. Bring it on, honey.

To have a vested interest in the outcome of our games we pledged to record the scores of our backgammon games in an ongoing league. Thus, the Sami And Mere Backgammon Association, S.A.M.B.A., was born. Partly to give us a vested interest in the outcome of the game (you know how playing someone who isn't into a game really sucks) and partly, well, just because we can.

Initially the S.A.M.B.A. league was very one sided; Mere continually kicked Sami's ass. Through calculated defencive tactics and menacing hair twirling she kept crushing his careless offensive moves. Since then, in a recent reversal of fortunes, Sami has clawed his way back and is currently ahead with a slight lead.

For simplicity 1 point is given for each set of best of 3 games.

Current score: Mere 36 - Sami 46

It remains to be seen what the future holds. One thing is for certain. The game is on.