Legends of the Game
Exclusive Interview: Bill Robertie
May 2007
by Lisa Boliva r
What's behind his incredible drive for success? It is not just abut the money, Bill Robertie says, it is really about the strategy.
At 60, Robertie sits atop the backgammon world as one of its all-time greats. His achievements are extraordinary. He is the two-time winner of the Monte Carlo World Championship Backgammon tournament (1983 and 1987) and winner at the Pro-Am tournament in the Bahamas in 1993 and at the Istanbul World Cup in 1994.
But Robertie reveals he first honed his remarkable skills at a different game. "I was a chess player as a kid and kind of rose up through the ranks and eventually won the U.S. championship in speed chess in the early 1970s." Robertie told "Double" in an exclusive interview.
"I got to be a master, but I kind of realized you aren't going to make any money playing chess unless you are one of the best four or five players in the world, which wasn't in the cards." "So I was looking for something else to do and stumbled around and found backgammon." Robertie is known for his agrressive approach to the game. He said it requires hours of analysis and study to become a master. But that study comes naturally for the Harvard graduate.
"If you want to become very, very good you're going to have to work very, very hard at it. I went home and set up a board and set up a position and played it out a couple of hundred times, and tabulated the results."
Robertie, who has a background in mathematics and computer system analysis, studied how each side won" an when I was done I said, ok this was double and this was pass.
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