2008 Portuguese Open Winners

The 2008 Portuguese Open, the opening event of the European Backgammon Tour second season, was championed by Matvey "Falafel" Natazon of Israel, who had defeated his German opponent Gotz Hildsberg. It was the first major winning for the Israeli backgammon player who was recently named number 1 Giant of Backgammon for 2007. The 2008 Portuguese Open semi-finalists were Michael Schmidt of Germany and Teppio Salo of Finland. 

Portuguese Open was held at the beginning of May at the pastoral Casino Estoril in Portugal with over 90 of the world's leading backgammon players and more than 100,000 euro in prize money. The winner of the main event was Falafel Natanzon, who will be playing at the next EGBT event, the 2008 Georgian Open. This year Portuguese backgammon championship saw a gross of over 25% in the number of participants comparing to the previous year.  

A special "Fair Play" prize was given this year to Oz Cohen-Zada of Israel who was qualified at Play65 online backgammon room. The 22 years old backgammon player, who played in an international backgammon tournament for the first time, had defeated some of the most skilled backgammon pros in the event including number 3 at the 2007 Giants of Backgammon Francois Tardieu (who lost 5-0 to Cohen-Zada) and Rida Hassan. Cohen-Zada had received the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" for his magical rolls of dice.

Cohen Zada (right) at the 2008 Portuguese Open