The ideal picture of people playing backgammon in cafes and markets used to be a typical characteristics of Turkey's cities everyday life. But not for long. From April 2008, playing backgammon on the streets of the Mediterranean region's Alanya district can consequence with an YTL 125 fine.

The public backgammon ban is one of a serial of municipal patrol regulations recently passed at the Alanya district council in Turkey. On top of the playing backgammon ban, the new rules forbid the local residents from walking their dogs on the beach, from consuming alcohol in public parks and prohibit the trampling over lawns. A breach of every one of these bans will cost the offender YTL 125. 

Backgammon in Turkey

Backgammon, or in its Turkish name "Tavla" is the most popular board game in the country. Public Tavla games are common in Turkey's local streets, cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and, rumors say, even in the middle of the streets. According to rough estimation there are about 30 millions amateur Tavla players in Turkey. Tavla is almost identical to the western backgammon game, except the Turkish game is played without the doubling cube and without the triple game (backgammon).   

Austrian backgammon player Tassilo Rzymann is the new 20th Nordic Open Backgammon Champion. The celebrated Nordic backgammon tournament was part of 2008 World Series of Backgammon (WSOB) qualifiers. Rzymann won a free seat at the next and final WSOB qualifier the Riviera Cup in Cannes, expected to occur on July and to end a day before the 2008 WSOB begins. 

The 2008 Nordic Open turned out to be one of the largest backgammon tournaments of the year with 154 entrants on the Championship Division, top backgammon players from the league of Gus Hansen and Falafel Natanzon were among them. The backgammon event consisted of several tournaments stretched throughout its 5 days including a 1^st Ladies Cup tournament (included 64 female backgammon players and won by Swedish Pia Sevelin), Nations Cup event (featured 12 teams; won by Play65 Team, a group of Danish backgammon players sponsored by the backgammon site of the same name).

The 2008 Nordic Open marked its 20th birthday in the European backgammon world. Additionally, in 2008, the Danish backgammon tournament was included in the World Series of Backgammon qualifiers, which guaranteed a free seat at the next qualifier to the winner. On top of the 10,000 euro Riviera Cup seat, Rzymann was awarded with a 32,000 euro cash prize and 7,000 euro "gold cube".

BackgammonMasters is opening its online backgammon, poker and blackjack platform to Bulgarian players by adding their native tongue to its 13 languages online backgammon, poker and casino games platform.

Online backgammon platform in Bulgarian is the latest addition at BackgammonMasters. Currently, the website can be translated to 14 different languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, and Bulgarian. On top of its veteran online backgammon platform, the site features online poker, blackjack and perudo games.

BackgmmonMasters players from Bulgaria who have already downloaded the software can switch to their native tongue by clicking on the Bulgarian flag at the All-in-One Game Lobby. The online backgammon website receives transactions in USD, Euros, GBP and Canadian Dollars, but no extra fee is charged for currency conversion. In the meantime, BackgammonMasters support is only available in English.