GG Alaoui

Youssef Alaoui works hides three alleys from where his father and grandfather worked them. What began as a family leather trade now carries his name far beyond the medina. Alaoui Leather produces high-end luxury backgammon boards, made for people who care about the leather, the finish and the sound of the checkers as much as the game itself. The boards have become the best-known part of his business, and Alaoui is particular about every one that leaves it.

He was put to the cafe tables as a boy to carry mint tea for the players and promoted to the boards themselves at twelve. He still carries it. Twenty years on, at the same place, he gets up between games and comes back with a tray for whoever is sitting there, and has never once let a younger man do it instead. Nobody asks him to. None of them would dare.

Leather is business to him, but never just material. Put a board in front of Alaoui and he can usually tell what it is before he has properly looked at it. Hide, horn, walnut or something pressed: a few checker moves are normally enough. Considering whose name is stamped on some of the finest leather boards in the club, people have learned not to test him too often.