GG AlThani

Abdullah Al-Thani has traded falcons at the Doha souk for thirty years, and his eye is trusted enough that buyers ring him from three countries before an auction. He once valued a gyrfalcon in eleven seconds, a story that improves annually. Backgammon is played in the shop between appraisals, loudly. He doubles on a hunch and feels every roll in his bones: read it, price it, attack, always up for one more. He is superstitious about exactly one thing. He will not play before a big sale, in case the luck gets spent early. Once a month he flies to Macau for a weekend of roulette and cash-table backgammon. He is an ordinary player and knows it, but the backgammon is not what empties him. That is the wheel, and the wheel has never once been read, priced or attacked. In Doha he plays the fastest format there is, at a speed that suits a man who values a bird in eleven seconds, and the whole shop hears every decision.