GG Khoury

Joseph Khoury runs the café on Gouraud Street that his grandfather opened, and it is what it has always been: half coffeehouse, half backgammon institution, with the same marble tables it had in 1958. He learned tavla there as a boy at his father's elbow, and came to the modern cube game late enough to remember clearly what it replaced. He is one of the most respected players in the region, though far more people have read him than have ever seen him play.

He has written a column on cube strategy for years, and his doubling decisions are taken apart by players who will never beat him. At the board he is courteous, unhurried and entirely unmoved. He doubles a beat earlier than anyone expects, because he has already priced the position and his opponent has not. He was on the old server as well, in the years when it was quietly emptying rooms like his own, and he has joined the Federation for one reason: it puts the game back in rooms. He intends to see all nine of them.