In praise of losing

Why losing at backgammon is half the point.

Think of a backgammon game you still talk about. Chances are you lost it.

Winning is pleasant and forgettable. Losing, if the game was any good, sticks around. Here's why that's a feature rather than a consolation prize.

Backgammon gives you an alibi

In chess, when you lose, you lost. There's nowhere to put the blame.

Backgammon hands you a way out. You played a sensible game, your opponent needed double fives, and there they were. You can sit back, gesture at the dice and say the sentence every backgammon player keeps loaded: "Well, what can you do."

It's not a lie, either. Over one game, the dice have a loud say in the outcome. That takes the sting out of a loss in a way few games manage.

Losing is what makes winning worth anything

If you won every time, you'd stop playing by Thursday.

The reason the next game is interesting is that you might lose it. The whole appeal rests on not knowing, and not knowing means losing a fair share. A game you can't lose isn't a game. It's a chore with dice.

The near-miss is the best part

There's a particular kind of loss that's more fun than most wins. You were two rolls from home. You needed anything but a six. They rolled a six.

It's awful and it's excellent. You'll be describing that roll for years, probably to people who have no interest in backgammon, and your opponent will be describing it too, from the other side.

Easy wins give you nothing to say.

The games you lose are the ones that teach you

You don't learn much from a game where the dice handed you everything.

Losses are different. A loss shows you the moment it turned: the checker you left out in the open, the double you should have taken, the risk that wasn't worth it. You remember it because it cost you something.

And once you can tell a bad decision from a bad roll, you're improving. Most of getting better at backgammon is learning that difference.

The board resets completely

Some losses follow you around. A backgammon loss doesn't.

The checkers go back to their starting points, every position is wiped, and you begin the next game on exactly even terms. No league table, no form, no handicap from last week. Whatever happened, it's gone by the time the next roll lands.

Few things in adult life offer that.

Losing well is a skill worth having

There's a version of losing that spoils the game: the sulk, the post-mortem, the insistence that you were robbed. It's not much fun to play against.

And there's the other version. You laugh, you blame the dice, you ask for another. That person is always invited back. It's a small social skill, learnable over a board, and it travels well beyond the game.

The short version

• The dice take some of the blame, so a loss hurts less.
• If you couldn't lose, you'd stop playing.
• Near-misses make better stories than wins.
• Losses show you what to work on; wins rarely do.
• Every game starts level again, whatever happened last time.
• Losing with good humour is its own skill, and people notice.