GG Zaki

Ahmed Zaki grew up above a tavla cafe in Sayeda Zeinab and had the game before he had his letters. He still plays like somebody who learned around crowded tables rather than from a manual: strong with the checkers, comfortable in a room and rarely silent for long.

What changed was what he wanted the board itself to look like. Zaki had an eye for clothes, leather and colour long before he had a company, and thought too many backgammon boards looked like nobody had made a decision about any of them. He started Zaki Boards from the ground up and built the brand around classic leather boards with a much sharper sense of presentation. It grew quickly. His instinct for what people wanted to own, photograph and put on a table turned out to be very good.

He is always promoting something. Sometimes it is Zaki Boards. Just as often it is backgammon itself. A restaurant needs a board. A hotel needs three. Somebody at dinner should learn the game. A jacket colour would work beautifully against a new leather. He has difficulty leaving any of these thoughts until morning.

Three girlfriends have left him over backgammon. Zaki maintains that this is an oversimplification. Nobody who knows him has yet offered a more convincing explanation.

He also helps keep his two younger siblings in school, which is one of the few responsibilities he discusses without turning it into a business idea. At the board he remains what he was before the company existed: a serious Expert who loves the game far too much to treat it merely as a product. He sells in English because that is the language the trade buys in, and he is selling from the moment he sits down.