Luigi Villa is a

backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back at least 1,600 years. The earliest record of backgammo ...

player from

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, Italy.Allen, Henry. "Gammonoid the Conqueror," ''The Washington Post''. 17 July 1979, p. B1 In 1979, he was the winner of the World Championship held in

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

.Bray, Chris. "Man vs. Machine", ''The Independent (London)''. 11 December 2004, p. 75. The very next day after winning the World Championship, he was defeated in a 7-point match by

Hans Berliner Hans Jack Berliner (January 27, 1929 – January 13, 2017) was an American chess player, and was the World Correspondence Chess Champion, from 1965–1968. He was a Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess. Berliner was a Professor of Computer ...

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. It is one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and other intangibl ...

BKG 9.8, Berliner, Hans, et al. "Backgammon program beats world champ", ''ACM SIGART Bulletin'', Issue 69. January 1980. pp. 6–9. becoming the first world champion in any

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

to be defeated by a software program. Although Villa's play in the match was stronger, the computer received more favorable

dice A die (: dice, sometimes also used as ) is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Dice are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, ro ...

rolls, winning the match 7–1. The match was played for

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

5,000, and drew an audience of 200 people. In 2006, Villa placed second at the World Championship following a six-hour, 25-point final round against Philip Vischjager.Bray, Chris. "Monte Carlo 2006", ''The Independent (London)''. 29 July 2006, p. 61

References

Living people Italian backgammon players Year of birth missing (living people) {{board-game-stub