Do you have mad skills in chess, backgammon and PLO? Then this challenge might be something for you: http://www.coinflip.com/coinflip-cha...in-100000.html

In simple terms you have to beat Ziigmund in PLO, GM Sune Berg Hansen in chess and me in backgammon. You wager $10,000 and get $100,000 should you beat us all. All matches are played live in Riga in October as a side event to Betsafes 'Rigged in Riga' tournament. Airfare and hotel is included in the $10.000 entry fee.

Who might be candidates for such a challenge?

Tossing a chess GM into the mix makes this an essentially impossible task. After all, the player would be a 7-1 dog to win three coin flips, so there's very little overlay here. Replace the chess GM with some generic expert and someone could at least consider it.

Does somebody have GM Walter Browne his phone number?

It is the only person I can think off, for who this might be a good challenge.

ridiculous challenge, and they reserve the right to pick a challenger - all they have to do is rule out any chess GMs and they might as well give 1,000-1

yeah even for Walter Browne it might be bad challenge. I don't know
I don't know who is the better GM. I never heard about that other guy.

I heard Browne is good at backgammon.
I heard Browne plays now poker profesional.
I don't know if these statements are true though.
But anyway, edges in poker and backgammon are small anyway.


EDITkay i looked up their ratings, and Sune Berg Hansen is 100 rating points above W.Browne, so he is an underdog in all games, so not good bet for W.Browne either. ( even if he is only 45% underdog in all games that would make him 1-to-10 underdog to win the challenge for a 1-to-9 reward. So not a good challenge for Walter.)

The rules for the individual games aren't laid out, but I don't see how anybody could be a favorite here, even if the BG is a match to 7 and the poker isn't deep. If Grischuk is decent at BG, maybe he could get to -20% ROI or something since he'd be a favorite at chess (under fair rules) and he knows something about poker.

People seeking publicity.

Nobody would take it on for the ridiculous odds offered.

Does Nakamura play BG?

Actually it says on the website that the chess match is played under "Armageddon" rules and that "Standard international rules with clocks apply in all disciplines". From wikipedia:

A game which White must win to win the match, but which Black only needs to draw to win the match. White has more time than Black: the discrepancy can vary, but in FIDE World Championships, White has six minutes, while Black only has five.

I don't know anything about competitive chess, but wouldn't there be some chance to get lucky in a 5-6 min match?

In a word, no. Match a grandmaster against a 'casual player' (someone rated below 1800 on the ELO scale) and the GM could give 10-2 time odds and still win close to 100% of the time.

I agree that the odds are hard but included in the $10,000 entry fee is airfare and hotel in Riga. This makes the odds a little bit better. As far as I know Grischuk is a very good poker player and a top notch chess player. Don't know about his backgammon skills.

Tobias Christensen is an chess IM, former backgammon giant and professional PLO cash player. He might have decent odds too.

What about Dan Harrington? I have heard something about him being good at chess and backgammon too.

the thing is - even a good IM who practices all the time is no match for Hansen, it has to be someone 2400-2500+, so there are probably like 3 people in the whole world for whom it'll be a relatively fair challenge and I'm not sure it's worth their time

Harrington has no chance of being >-50% ROI- he's not even an IM (unless I missed something). Christensen might be in the <-50% ROI camp, but he's only going to win the chess like 25% of the time with a 200 pt disadvantage (and that's even worse if he's white in a 6/5 armageddon game). Having good odds against a 2550 chessplayer is just so freaking hard. A decent amateur isn't a monster dog in a 7-game BG match, or in one SNG, but a master-level chessplayer isn't even 10% to beat the GM.

How about Gus Hansen? He has a chance to win against Ziigmund and OP, but little to no chance in the chess match. They'd probably need to increase the money tenfold, but in a vacuum, he could do it.

Have the chess match last so you can bribe the GM to take a dive ldo.

You could make the idea feasible by just replacing the chess part with another skill/luck game like gin rummy. I don't know who the top gin players are nowadays, but find one, stick him in there, slightly increase the payout to something like 10k versus 150k, and you've probably got a playable proposition.

The initial scenario is so proposterous that it probably doesn't even warrant consideration.

I am an elite games all-rounder and I only know of one person who would have sufficient ability to win the three games proposed. As others pointed out it is the chess GM that is the problem.

Many chess GMs take-up poker but in my experience they are pretty bad at it. However, the backgammon mindset appears to elude chess players. There are very few people in the world who could beat me at any three non-pure luck games but they want to find someone who can compete against three specialists. You lower the chess to an IM and I could find several takers. Or translate it into chinese using google with the same players I would be better than the odds being paid.

If I could pick which of the three to play at which game I would probably win all 3. With chess also having a broad draw space winning may not happen. you could replace the poker player by a hamster and the backgammon player by a cat and you may not find anyone on this forum who would win.

I hope that no one plays them!

Sune Berg Hansen has a rating of 2595.

I know GM Tibor Tolnai plays poker almost exclusively now. His rating was over 2500 about ten years ago, and plays backgammon also.

Josef Klinger is also a grandmaster and also hardly ever plays chess nowadays, but his last score in poker was € 1,000,000 at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in 2010. I believe he plays BG as well.

Nevertheless I think they would be underdogs as opposed to Grischuk as long a he is a half decent BG player.

this bet is so -EV i need to find an adult to calm me down... the only person i see taking this beat is Gus Hansen since he is both good at poker and backgammon.. dont know about the chess skillz.... :/

Don't really know for sure, but I don't think he plays chess on a serious level at all. And it's the most important of the games because it's the only of the three games where you have zero chance of luckboxing a win. A chess gm, who just barely knows the rules of poker and backgammon would have a better shot.

i've heard that garompon from stars was a chess expert. he might be able to do it. and he's not incompetent at poker.

chess expert? what is chess expert? you mean expert rating?
Let's say, even if this guy was a FM with rating 2350.
He has very small chance against a 2600 GM.
I'm sure he would have then no more then 20% at most to win the chessmatch.
And probably less.
no edge in backgammon or poker can ever overcome that for the whole match.

I agree with what Mute has said that a chess GM has the best chance.
I think Kramnik would have better edge in this challenge than all the other people mentioned. Even if he knows nothing about PLO and backgammon, and spends some good time learning these games till the challenge.

i don't know anything about chess, but i do believe he is/was a GM.
this is him.

http://www.chessclub.com/activities/...andle=garompon

you can find him on PTR under garompon as well

This guy who came 9th in the 5k WSOP PLO a couple of years ago, could possibly take on the challenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomi_Nyback
He's even slightly better than Hansen in chess, but I don't know if he's ever played backgammon.

There's also at least one other very good Finnish poker pro who's ELO is in the high 2500's, but because he doesn't have a Wiki article I won't publish his name here. Backgammon could be an issue for him as well.

But as someone stated earlier, you'd be 7 to 1 against to win three coinflips and you're getting 10 to 1, so even if you were 50-50 in all three games, your edge wouldn't be astronomical. In any case you'd have to wager $10k and given the variance involved it'd require a healthy bankroll.

Let's sum this up. You have to be a GM in chess, who is a also a world class backgammon player, a good PLO player, and have a bankroll in the high six figures.

Replace the chess player with a Scandi pro pool player and double your end to 200k and you could prob find some takers.