MONTE CARLO, Monaco – (PRESS RELEASE) -- The 31st World Backgammon Championship finished with an epic final on Sunday 16th July at the Fairmont Luxury Resort, Monte Carlo. The two finalists were Luigi Villa (Italy) who was the first ever World Backgammon Champion in 1979 and Philip Vischjager (Netherlands) who was a first time player at the World Championships and was previously a finalist in 4 major Dutch tournaments. Vischjager was leading the match throughout until the tension mounted when Villa caught up in 19-19/25 after reaching 4 hours of match play. Vischjager finally won the ultimate 2006 World Backgammon Championship title when he took Luigi by 23-25/25 and with that the championship prize money of over € 75,000 from the total prize pool of € 240'000.

The first semi-final draw (€ 20,000 winning prize money) saw Luigi Villa beat Andreas Humke (Germany) after he came back from a 14-1/ 23 loss to finally win 22-16/23 in the Crawford game. In the second draw Philip Vischjager beat Kayuhiro Shino (Japan/England) 23-6/23 point game.

This 31st edition of the Championship attracted 335 players in the main Event which included the 212 Championship Expert players, Intermediate and Beginner flights. Among the former World Champions and Backgammon legends who showed up to play for a chance of this prestigious title were Paul Magriel, Falafel Nathanson, Mike Svobodny and John O'Hagan and 2005 winner Dennis Carlston. Some went on to play and win in the consolations rounds. First Consolation Winners :1C-Fabrizio Losurdo (Italy), 2C-Pierre Svara (Monaco), 3C/4C-Martin Foldager (Denmark) / Daisuke Katagami (Japan) Second Consolation Winners: 1C-Masayuki Mochizuki (Japan), 2C-Slava Pryadkin (Ukraine), 3C/4C-Richard Persson (Sweden) / Johan Moazed (Iran/Sweden).

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