As with each year's Computer Olympiad, computer programs competed against each other at a variety of games, including Awari, backgammon, bridge, chess, Chinese Chess, draughts, Gin rummy, Go, Go-Moku, Othello, Renju and Scrabble.
He is an all-around expert games player and has excelled in such games as bridge, poker, backgammon, golf, and bowling.
James Browning (poker), poker and backgammon player, commentator, see Poker Night Live
Many of the "Giants of Backgammon" (top 32 in the world) participated in Zone tournaments, including Neil Kazaross, Johannes Levermann, Steve Sax, Howard Ring, Paul Weaver, Kit Woolsey, and Bill Robertie.
Unlike previous neural-net backgammon programs such as Neurogammon (also written by Tesauro), where an expert trained the program by supplying the "correct" evaluation of each position, TD-Gammon was at first programmed "knowledge-free".
In 2008, the online backgammon site Play65 ran three online qualifiers for the WSOB final table at Cannes aka WSOB Championship.
Paul Magriel (born 1946), an American professional backgammon and poker player