Modest and unassuming, Erik Seidel is a professional poker player, one of the world’s best. In fact, he is one of a very select few players who have won multiple World Series of Poker Bracelets, (he has won seven WSOP Bracelets as of this writing). Erik is the only WSOP tournament player in the past twenty-five years to win three consecutive years running:

• 1992 – $2500 Limit Hold ‘em – $168,000

• 1993 – $2500 - Omaha 8 or Better – $94,000

• 1994 – $5000 - No-Limit Hold ‘em – $210,000

Seidel is additionally ranked among the top ten money makers in World Series of Poker Tournament play, his standing kept intact by his $611,795 victory in the 2005 WSOP Tounament, in which he outlasted and overcame 1,402 competitors.

Although Erik is held in high regard in the world of professional tournament poker, poker, his first love now, was not his first love thirty-five years ago, when in 1970 he left college to pursue a career as a professional backgammon player.

Playing backgammon at New York’s legendary Mayfair Club, Erik entered a backgammon tournament in Las Vegas, where playing a few games of low-limit poker peaked a new interest in the game. Back at the Mayfair, Erik and a number of fellow backgammon players, Paul Magriel, Jason Lester, Steve Zotolow and Howard Lederer among them, began a regular series of poker games, eventually leading the boy’s into professional poker tournament competition.

During this time Erik worked as a trader on Wall Street to supplement an erratic income from Backgammon. Eventually, backed by friends, Erik felt confident enough to enter a World Series of Poker Tournament in Las Vegas.

Erik’s initial foray into the WSOP was discouraging, to say the least. Entering one-table satellite play for the Main Event, Erik lost every one, nine in all. Not deterred by his losses, Erik bought into the Main Event, and his skillful play enabled him to finish second only to the winner, the famed Johnny Chan.

As it so happened, a movie about poker was being filmed at the time of the tournament called ” Rounders.” The film starred Matt Damon, and it was about a reformed gambler who returned to playing big stakes poker to help a friend pay off threatening loan sharks. The movie’s director, John Dahl thought it would be interesting film the playoff between Chan and Seidel. The final hand brought a measure of movie fame to Erik and Johnny Chan as it was included in the film - much to Seidel’s embarrassment, he lost, (pair of queens to a straight).

• Only four players in all of WSOP Tournament competition have won more bracelets than Erik Seidel.

• 2005 WSOP Event #9 - No-Limit Hold ‘em - 1st place – $611,795

• 1999 WSOP Main Event - 4th place – $279,500

• 1998 WSOP Main Event - 2nd place – $280,000

• World Poker Tour - Season #3 - Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship - 4th place – $165,000

Erik currently lives in Henderson, Nevada, (just outside of Las Vegas proper), with his wife and daughter. His favorite ways to relax are listening to music and playing tennis.

In the 1970’s, it was estimated that nearly every American household owned a copy of the common backgammon board. Over the years, backgammon has remained a consistently popular game around the world. Yet who could have imagined that people would one day be able to play their favorite board game online?

Internet backgammon has helped bring the game to a brand new audience and has rekindled the interest of older backgammon fans. Even if you belong to one of the generations that didn’t grow up with a computer in the living room, learning how to play backgammon online is fun and simple to master. One of the many advantages to playing online is that you don’t even need to remember the backgammon setup. The computer does it all for you, leaving you to get on with playing and winning.

As the backgammon game has evolved online, so too has its audience and the variations they can find to play. Backgammon fans come from all age groups and backgrounds. Some are fans of backgammon gambling and so prefer to play standard versions of the game at pay for money sites, and to compete against other players in online tournaments.

Others however, prefer to play the game purely for fun and so play several different variations of backgammon that have found their way online in the last few years. Among these are Turkish backgammon, or Tawula, and American and European versions of Acey-Deucey. Both of these games have been popular for decades but today offer online gaming fans greater challenges and a new spin on the standard backgammon game. These and other backgammon versions are growing more and more in popularity as a result and are especially fun if you’re already familiar with the game and want to test your skills under different rules. For example, instead of starting with 15 checkers on the board, you start with just two checkers playing Tawula. You have to roll the die to bring your other 13 checkers onto the board before you move your other checkers. In this way, backgammon is given a new twist to hold players’ attention.

If you’ve never played backgammon on the internet before and the idea of trying out board games online looks appealing, you can access a range of free sites to bring your gaming skills up to date. Free backgammon games are available all over the internet and can teach you the basics on how to play in no time. They are also useful training grounds for testing out new theories and strategies and for building up your confidence levels.

Some gaming sites even offer backgammon software which you can download for free and instal on your PC. Once you have this software, you can play it any time as much as you like to prepare you for live friendly games or for money games.

You can also make contact with thousands of fellow backgammon fans by visiting backgammon forum sites. These sites are a wonderful source of information and allow you to post questions, access the latest industry news, learn about new online sites and tournaments and share your backgammon experiences with like-minded people.

It’s 9am on a weekday, a mother has already dressed her children for school. After she drops them off she will be heading to a casino for an early dose of gambling.

She goes home, logs into her computer and starts making money. Then she gets on with the things she enjoys doing. Later she logs in and checks her income for the day.Sounds “too ridculous to be true”? Not in todays world where casinos are available in our own homes, online.

Gambling is now seen as ordinary activity that most people tend to overlook. By doing so, they do not see the potential income gambling can bring to thier lives.

Now earning money online by gambling is NOT for everyone, you have to be a sensible person who will not get carried away by the thrill of wiinnig and bet outside the rules of a good system.

Generally, gambling, more commonly know as betting, is a behavior that involves money put at risk on a future result. The money is at risk because the probability of winning is too low or is totally dependent upon chance.

You could never be sure of winning a gambling game, unless you have an unbeatable, proven system based on statistics.

Gambling comes in many forms: one that can be beatable and the other not beatable

Beatable games of gambling refer to games that can be trampled thereby creating a positive numerical probability through proper strategy.

These includes poker, though this is better classified as a game of skill; blackjack, video poker, Pai Gow Poker and Tiles, sports betting, horse racing, and slot machines.

On the other hand, unbeatable games makes a player eventually lose a game no matter what strategy they use. More common examples of these games are slot machines, baccarat, craps, roulette, keno, casino war, faro, pachinko, 3-card and 4-card poker, red dog, pyramid poker, Caribbean stud poker, and Spanish 21.

Both beatable and unbeatable gambling games can be found in the casinos. Though, there are other gambling games that are not played inside the casinos such as lottery, mahjong, backgammon, coin-tossing games such as head and tail, and carnival games like The Razzle and Hanky Pank.

There are also the so-called fixed-odds gambling that can be seen on events like horse racing, football, golf, tennis, baseball, and other sports that entice people to bet on the winner of the event.

In gambling, people usually try to win back the money they have lost.This is why 95% of people who gamble eventually lose money. They continue to bet and eventually place their selves at the risk of losing more instead.

Many people who gamble say that they only play for pleasure or recreation. Others say they just have to earn money and that gambling is an easy way to do so.

However, because gambling involves a variety of mental activity, coupled with stress and the mentality of a winner, it can be a possible source of psychological addiction. In the long run, this can be very harmful to people who are affected by gambling.

Consequently, because of the negative effect of gambling, most legal jurisdictions opt to not legalize any gambling activity. With this, any contracts that led to debts brought about by a certain gambling activity are deemed unenforceable by any legal process.

If you are going to succeed in making tax free money from gambling you need to have access to a proven system that gets results and you have to avoid the temptation to try and get your money back after a loss. If you cannot do this then earning fast money gambling online is not for you.

Are you familiar with the rules on how to play backgammon but lack confidence to really improve your backgammon game? Online backgammon is as much about attitude as it is about skill. You may be an experienced player or a skillful novice, but if you don’t take chances you’re unlikely to reach your full potential. The following tips and pointers are designed with you in mind. Maybe you’re new to the world of internet backgammon or you’ve just finished playing your first backgammon board game. Or perhaps you’re a seasoned backgammon fan but a little out of practice? Regardless of your circumstances, you can substantially increase your success at the game by using some of the following strategies in your game.

One of the best pieces of advice any backgammon professional can give you is to study your opponent’s game plan. Try and learn as much information as you can on his strengths and weaknesses. Keeping note of how he performs can help you to recognize his habits. Does he have an aggressive or defensive backgammon strategy? Is he confident to bet large sums of money on his game? How does he use the backgammon board to his advantage and which common escape routes does he use to deflect your game plan? The answers to these questions can help you pre-empt your opponent’s next move and will reduce his chances of winning.

Now we’ll take a look at some specific backgammon strategies to help you improve your game. If you want to prevent your opponent from transporting his checkers safely to his home board, you can adopt the “Priming” strategy. To do this, you erect a wall of checkers covering at least six points on the board. If you want to be extra aggressive, try blocking your home board as soon as you can which will prevent your opponent from reintroducing checkers to the board.

If your opponent is in a more favorable position than you are, you may be able to distract him from his game plan by applying the “Backgame” and “Holding” strategies. The first relates to the construction of two or more anchors in your opponent’s home board. The latter involves attempting to hit your opponent’s checkers as he brings them toward his home board. This strategy can often force a confident player into defensive mode and give you valuable time to catch up to him.

Lastly, if it appears that you are in the strongest position to win the backgammon game, why not try the “Running” strategy? This is simply moving your checkers as fast as you can around the board while keeping a wary eye out for your opponent’s traps. A useful tip if you are “Running” is to keep your checkers in pairs to avoid hits.

If you follow this advice, you can increase the enjoyment you get when you play backgammon, as well as increase your success at backgammon gambling.