As usual, the European Championship took place in June. In another section (“Jackpot-Pauli”) you can read (or even pre-read) how I spent this month. Namely with winning. It may be that too much luck makes you reckless, but I think I had a good chance to put my betting skills to the test. Not only…
A summer fairy tale 1) Preparation The summer of 1985. The realisation that backgammon was “my game”, that my (imagined) skills could be perfectly combined there, I had long since gained in boundless overconfidence. I had read through all the available books and developed another feeling: in a previous life I must have been a…
1) A true prophet So once again I had a very bad time. All the people in the world seemed to know how the games were going to turn out. This information was not available to me. Self-doubt gnawed at me. My partner at the time then had an idea, as he told me during…
A few stories worth remembering There’s a question I’m often asked and love to hear, “What was your biggest win?” Not quite as interesting seems to be the question, “What was your greatest loss?” However, I have a simple explanation for the reluctance to answer this question: diplomacy. One would like to know, also to…
Summer 1980 Like every summer in these years, 1980 was no exception: I spent the winter semester with good intentions and mainly at university, as a good student. I probably wanted to encourage my father’s oft-quoted saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. For in the summer semester there were plenty of…
1) I already had this affinity for numbers (at an early age) and this certain talent, which one can mention, but which also seems to be present in this way (by quotation or in the text). I was often given arithmetic problems that were absolutely not age-appropriate (like 7 times 17, at pre-school age), but…
There are stories that are so unbelievable that a novelist would first think twice about writing them that way. Or was I just drawn into a novel by chance? In any case, the following happened authentically: I had just become a proud “backgammon pro” and was always on the lookout for a “good game”. This…
1) A portrait of Dirk Paulsen The Berlin TV station rbb contacted me one day. A journalist must have become aware of me through a newspaper report. They wanted to do a portrait of me. The title of the programme was: “A day in the life of…”. This time I was to be the main…
How do you get chance on your side? Another example of how people fight against chance and try to get it on their side? In 1988, I played for the super jackpot at the World Backgammon Championship in Monte Carlo. In an early round, I had to play against a rather nasty contemporary who also…
To do this, I recapitulate from the beginning:So in 1985 I was in Monte Carlo for the first time. I had completely figured out blackjack. I had developed a blackjack programme. I had also studied the game of backgammon and played a lot. I had even won two tournaments. I had applied everything. But I…
