Matvey Natanzon (better known by his pseudonym Falafel) (July 5, 1968 – February 14, 2020) was a Russian-born Israeli

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.

Life and career

Natanzon was born in

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

and moved with his mother to

Azor Azor () is a local council (Israel), local council in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, on the old Jaffa-Jerusalem road southeast of Tel Aviv. Established in 1948, Azor was granted local council status in 1951. In it had a population of , and ha ...

, a small

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i town near

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

, in 1972. He moved to

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, as a teenager. Natanzon graduated from the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public research university in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. The university was founded in 1846 a ...

in 1991 with a degree in accounting. Shortly thereafter he moved to

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. Homeless, he lived for 6 months in

Washington Square Park Washington Square Park is a public park in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is an icon as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. The park is operated by the New York City Department o ...

and learned to hustle

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

and backgammon from local gamblers. Some of Natanzon's associates at that time went on to become famous poker players, including

Phil Laak Philip Courtney Laak (born September 8, 1972) is an Irish-American professional poker player and a poker commentator, now residing in Los Angeles, California. Laak holds a World Poker Tour (WPT) title, a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, and ...

Gus Hansen Gustav Hansen (born 13 February 1974) is a Danish professional poker player from Copenhagen, Denmark who has lived in Monaco since 2003. In his poker career, Hansen has won three World Poker Tour open titles, one WSOP bracelet and the 2007 Auss ...

, and

Abe Mosseri Abraham Mosseri (born June 21, 1974, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American professional backgammon and poker player from New York City, New York, who won the 2009 World Series of Poker $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball event. Poker career Primari ...

. Natanzon himself played poker and was part owner of a card parlor in Tel Aviv. In 2005 Natanzon played on the Israeli team in the Nations Cup backgammon tournament. In 2007, Natanzon was named the number one backgammon player in the world by an unscientifically compiled peer-audited review known as Giants of Backgammon. Although the rankings are not precise, Jake Jacobs, the list's compiler, says about it that "We can never know for certain who is the best player in a given year, but we can confidently eliminate 99.99 per cent. Falafel survived the cut." Natanzon died on February 14, 2020 of GBM.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Natanzon, Matvey American backgammon players Soviet emigrants to Israel Israeli emigrants to the United States Israeli people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish American sportspeople Place of death missing Sportspeople from Buffalo, New York University at Buffalo alumni 1968 births 2020 deaths 21st-century American Jews