Falafel on Backgammon, Chess and Online Backgammon

The backgammon player who is known around the international backgammon circuit as "Falafel" was interviewed to the online backgammon website Play65 for his winning as the backgammon giant of 2007. Falafel, who has recently won the WBA Portuguese Open 2008, talks about his chess hustling, playing backgammon online and the origin of his peculiar nickname. 

Falafel, 39, was born as Michael Natanzon in Russia. His parents divorced when he was little and Natanzon immigrated to Israel with his mother. Aged 13, his mother remarried and the new family moved to the United States. Natanzon said he owes his backgammon career to his step father, who brought him a chess guidebook to improve his English. After graduating from college (accounting and business management), Natnazon came to realize that he is "not a 9 to 5 kind of guy", therefore he "couldn't function properly in the 'normal' world".  

Why Falafel?

Living in the parks of New York and playing chess for small stakes of money, Natanzon could only afford falafel meals, the cheap and filling Middle Eastern fast food made of deep fried chickpeas stuffed inside pita bread.  

Early Backgammon Career

An accidental meeting with a backgammon game made Falafel Natanzon to quit chess and to entirely devote himself to the newly discovered board game. "The luck is in the (backgammon b.d.) game and that is what makes it so great. If it wasn't for the luck element, it wasn't different from chess and it was less interesting, and less challenging", he explains the difference between two classic board games.  

Playing Backgammon Online

Falafel used the backgammon program "Snowie" to improve his backgammon play, analyze his matches and learned from his mistakes. Ever since the end of the 90s, he has been playing backgammon professionally in tournaments worldwide and online. Though he admits that practicing backgammon online has improved his game tremendously, Falafel still prefers to play the game "over the table"'. In his words: "If someone plays so good online, I must meet him… I always chat with people during matches and ask them to meet… but no one has accepted my initiations so far…"

Falafel playing backgammon & a paparazzi