He had threatened the stockbroker with legal action but the man had stood his ground, and the cheapest solicitor wanted $50,000 up front to take on the case.

“Why are other people so scheming?” he asked himself.

A road sign flashed by as the hailstones pummelled the windscreen again. Los Angeles 2100. He had three solid days’ driving ahead of him, having left Chicago earlier that day. He stopped for a coffee and a sandwich at one of the off-road eating places in Missouri. Grabbing his beloved board under his arm he walked confidently into the dingy diner, but there were only a few lorry drivers reading the National Enquirer.

He wolfed down his food, cursing audibly when he spilt some ketchup on his tie, and went back to the car. He decided to drive for another few hours and then stopped at one of the ‘Roach Motels’, as they called them, on the long drive from St. Louis to Tulsa.

The next day the rain poured down as he drove West. The windscreen wiper reminded him of the many blitzes he had conducted. Hit, enter, hit, enter, hit, enter. He switched them off for a second as he imagined closing out the other guy, but the rain soon forced him to put them back on. He loved the game, but others wrongly thought he loved the money more. Another road sign; Los Angeles 1900. He was sure no-one would have heard of him on the West Coast.

He had learnt of a new backgammon club in downtown L.A. frequented by a few former show-business types. He normally played for twenty dollars per point, but would go up to fifty or even a hundred against the right opponent. With his own board and dice, of course; he couldn’t trust anyone else’s equipment. He looked over into the back seat to see that his large hand-made board was still there.

A friend of his from Cali in Colombia had made it for him. A swarthy guy who smoked large cigars and was in the import-export business apparently. His friend had a small container business as well, and it was here the board was made. How he liked the way the dice rolled on its leather surface.

Many hours of practice had gone into perfecting his technique; well, if you want to be a top player, you have to look the part. He had read all the books. Scarne on Dice was his favourite. He had so much admiration for John and had watched when Scarne had shown the Las Vegas Gaming Board how to roll boxes (double sixes) on a full-length Craps table. John had managed twenty-three double sixes in a hundred trials! The secret was aiming at exactly the point where the vertical board meets the playing table, causing the dice to grind to a halt as though grabbed by the American footballer Walter Payton.

Of course, he was unable to demonstrate his own skills to anyone; people get the wrong idea if you are thought to have any manipulative ability with the dice. He was just a strong player, particularly in backgames.

As he would always tell people, “You won’t win if you can’t hit your shots.”

The car swerved as he practised his 6-2 from the bar and a lorry in the other lane honked indignantly. Los Angeles 1200, was the sign, which also told him he was in Texas.

He remembered a stocky Texan with a ten-gallon hat whom he used to play. He was in the oil industry apparently. He never did find out the guy’s point of last take, and he should have made more money out of him. But it was a dangerous business getting the cube to 32 all the time. How did the Texan survive all those stacked positions? He loved to stack his dollar bills in the same way as he stacked his checkers. His concentration was beginning to waver and he decided to stop for the night in Amarillo.

Back on the road again. The breakfast was horrible; two eggs swimming around in fat like split checkers after an opponent’s opening double five. He disagreed with the experts on the split. Those double fives always seemed to pop out of the dice cup. People even took the cube after they danced.

Some guy called Billy Horan offered to play a take/pass proposition with him at $200 per point after a six-two, played by splitting to the opponent’s bar and bringing one down from the mid-point, a double five pointing on the ace-point and making the three-point, and a dance, leading to this position:

He had even travelled to Vegas to play him but Billy had a strange contraption with a helter-skelter which he insisted on using for rolling the dice. Seemed like the guy was trying to cheat him and he called it off. Billy had feigned surprise but wouldn’t even give him a hundred dollars for his travel.

Another sign; Los Angeles 1000. He had been driving for nearly four hours and needed food. A cafe just off the highway in New Mexico shone like a beacon in the distance. Wandering in, he saw half-a-dozen burly guys playing cards. He ordered a large pepper-steak and watched them from the next table. They were playing Draw Poker and he could see that they were useless, regularly playing on three to a flush, or a low pair. They looked honest enough, but he remembered the words of Samuel Johnson:

“Most vices may be committed genteelly; a man may debauch his friend’s wife genteelly; he may cheat at cards genteelly.”

“I think I’ll steer clear of that game,” he thought to himself.

He had seen so many card sharps who could deal themselves aces with one hand while rolling cigarettes with the other.

“Anyone for a friendly game of backgammon?” he asked.
“Sorry, none of us play,” came the simultaneous replies, almost like a church congregation starting the Lord’s Prayer.

He wondered if they had been ‘burnt’ by some other strong player in the past. He toyed with the idea of pointing out to them that ‘none’ was singular, but thought better of it, and returned to the car. The road was now fairly deserted and he made good progress through the flat New Mexico countryside.

But all of a sudden two lights were coming in his direction. Some maniac was driving straight at him. He braked and swerved. He was going to hit the other car, but it seemed to split into two at the last minute. “Bloody motorcyclists,” he mumbled as he woke up and felt his forehead. There was a slight gash. He looked out to see that he was in a ditch at the edge of the road and the bonnet was buckled where it had come off second best in an argument with a giant cactus. Well, there was no alternative but to walk to the next garage.

“Albuquerque welcomes careful drivers,” said the mocking sign.

He looked down at his bruised feet. He must have walked at least ten miles. It was nearly midnight and the only place open was a sleazy joint in a run-down part of the city.

He walked in and asked, “Is there a garage open at this time? I have crashed my car a few miles down the road.”
“Nope, you will have to wait until the morning,” came the reply from the busty barmaid. “I suggest you stay the night in the city. We have a couple of rooms still available, as it happens.”

He sat down at the bar and ordered a beer.

“This is a seedy place,” he thought to himself, looking around at the smoke-covered card tables and denim-clad pool hustlers.

In the corner was a door marked ‘Games Room’ and his curiosity drew him towards it. When he opened the door, he found a couple of other card tables and two old guys playing backgammon. He watched the backgammon game for a few minutes and thought to himself,

“These guys are weak. I could give them an opening three-one and still win a point per game.”

He endured some excruciatingly bad games for a while...

“Have to go, Nick,” said one eventually. “I have to be at the garage at seven in the morning.”
“Ok, Cymbeline, thanks for the games,” Nick replied.
“Cymbeline? What a stupid name." he thought. "Wasn’t he some king of England in Roman times?”

But he had also heard the word garage.

“Are you a mechanic?” he asked Cymbeline, “I crashed just outside the city.”

“Yes, I am,” replied the wrinkled old man, “of many years. I can go out with you in the pick-up truck in the morning. Come round to the garage in the next block at about seven in the morning.”

He thanked the old man for his offer, and bade him good night.

“Do you want to play a few games?”, asked Nick, “as I guess you are staying the night here.”

They sat down to play on an old board with worn points and a couple of cups which looked like they had been made out of detergent bottles as part of a children’s activity programme. He winced at their appearance.

“Sorry, but you have to hold your hand under the cups before you roll,” advised Nick, “or the dice will fall through the bottom.”

The strange cups reminded him of something.

“No problem”, he replied, “as I have always said, the equipment is of no importance; it is the game that matters.”

Stakes of $20 per point were agreed. He winced again when Nick rolled on whichever side of the board he preferred.

“Contra bonum morem,” he thought to himself, recalling the Roman dramatist, Seneca. Something else stirred in the back of his mind when he thought of Seneca. But what was it?

Soon he had a big advantage and doubled. Nick beavered and he raccooned. He was bearing off aggressively against a deuce-point game when he was forced to leave a shot when his intended, and winning, roll of double four carelessly caught a little bump on the old board, and landed as a four-two. He had noticed the bump earlier too; how could he be so clumsy? This was the position:

White to move 42

“Ah, well, nothing for it but to hit on the deuce-point and take the man off,” he thought. “I am still a big favourite if he hits. It must be better to hit despite the extra two shots, as I win more gammons.”

Nick did hit with a double six from the bar, and was forced to slot his ace-point. Summoning up all his skill, he replied with a six-one, hitting and escaping. Again Nick rolled a double six repeating the position.

“How odd”, he thought, and again carefully rolled a six-one, hitting and escaping.
Nick smiled at him: “Good rolling, stranger,” he said.

Another double six came from Nick. He rolled a six-one again and again the same reply of double six came. He started sweating and realised that Nick was his equal in one all-important area of the game.

At that moment a beautifully preserved lady, maybe in her fifties, entered the room.

“Seen Cymbeline, Nick?” she asked.
“He left about ten minutes ago, Boadica,” came the reply.
“Cymbeline? Boadica? What strange names”, he mused.

But something was still nagging at the back of his mind.

His thoughts went back to the position and he started to analyse it. He had to keep rolling the six-one, otherwise Nick could close him out and get off in three rolls after bearing off the spares. He would not physically be able to get off in two rolls when allowed to enter. So the game was a rather bizarre draw, with perfect rolling by both sides.

“Come on, I have the cube,” badgered Nick, “there is nothing for you to think about.”
“Shall we settle,” he offered. “I can keep rolling six-one and you have to reply with double six. The game is a draw.”
“A draw?”, queried Nick. “How do you know that you will keep rolling six-one? Surely you cannot control...”

He was interrupted by another visitor.

“Hi Claudius”, Nick greeted another old man who had just entered.
“Hi Nick” came the reply. “I hear we may get another player for the tournament. A chap was killed in a car crash and they found a damaged backgammon board in the back with magnetised strips poking out...”

He tried to say something but couldn’t. The jigsaw was complete. Cymbeline and Boadica were so-called ‘practised dice players’ in Roman times. He remembered the curious feeling of déja vu with the dice cups and now vividly recalled the dramatist Seneca’s skit on the death of Claudius, in which the Roman Emperor was forced to repeatedly pick up his dice and roll them, using bottomless cups in...