Printing brackets enlarged on multiple pages

For our weekly tournaments on Wednesdays we just print out our tournament brackets on a single sheet of paper.  For our weekend tournaments where we play longer matches and normally have few more people, we like to make a larger bracket that we can display on an easel.  For a long time, we would get foam board, I think 22" by 28", and draw a bracket on it.  This was pretty time consuming since its tricky to make sure all the many lines are evenly spaced and straight and make everything fit just right.

Lately, we've been instead printing out an enlarged version of the bracket that fits on to 6 pages.  It seems like that should be easier to do than it was.  And considering I only do it every many months, I'd forgotten how last time, so I thought I would document the procedure.  I could not find any way to do it in Microsoft Word, so this solution is for PDF.  If you're starting with a Microsoft Word document, as I do, then the first step is to save it as a PDF document.

1) If starting from Word, do a "Save as..." and save as PDF format.

2) Open the PDF with Adobe Acrobat Reader (other PDF Reader programs like FoxIt have ways to do this too)

3) Go to "File/Print..." to open the Print dialog

4) Under "Page Sizing & Handling", click Poster

5) Change the "Tile Scale" to 200%, or some other value.  For us, printing at 200% enlarges the bracket to print on 6 landscape pages (22" x 25.5") instead of just 1 page.  150% would print to 4 pages

We then tape the 6 page print out to the foam board so that we can stand the foam board on the easel. When we write on the bracket with Sharpie marker, it can bleed through and get small dots on the foam board so I definitely wouldn't tape the bracket to the wall if you're using markers on it.

Also, there are tiny margins on the paper when it prints, so we cut those off of at least one side of the papers so that we can tape them together with little to no white gap.

Backgammon Boards

[Originally posted as an answer on Quora]

When buying a backgammon board, the prices generally depend on the playing surfaces, and there are some personal preferences there.  Here are some ideas for different options.  

Local department stores usually don't have anything but low quality boards, like chess/checkers/backgammon combo kits.  those are cheap, like $20, but they're usually pretty small.  They're also usually wood and wood isn't a great surface to play on.  Some wood sets can be beautifully painted, but the loud sound of the dice hitting the wood can get irritating.  And checkers slip more easily on wood.

Specialty game stores may carry the standard "attache' " board that folds and has a handle.  The price can be $30 to $100.   The material of the boards they sell is usually felt with vinyl "pips" sewn on.  Over time, the edges of the vinyl pips get worn and get in the way of moving the checkers.  So these are good for a casual player, but will wear out fast for someone who plays regularly.

Next level up would be a Crisloid board, $200-$300.  These are larger boards with a cork playing surface.  These are popular at our club and easy to find on the Crisloid site or on eBay or other places online.  One disadvantage is they can get very dirty over time.  Coating them with a polyurethane spray can help with that, but that can make the dice spin a lot, which some people don't like.  https://crisloid.com/product-category/backgammon/

I think the boards that are considered the best are a big step up from those, usually close to $1000.  These are usually bigger than those previously mentioned and they also have nicer checkers and dice cups.  One common playing surface option in that range is a wool playing surface with dyed wool pips inlaid instead or sewn in for easier checker movement.   One independent manufacturer of these boards is Tak Morioka.  His are the most popular boards for big tournament players.  Here is a link with his contact info and pictures:
http://www.chicagopoint.com/takb...


Also in the $1000 range are leather playing surfaces.  The leather can be beautifully painted and is a nice surface to play on too.  One manufacturer of those is Brahma.
http://www.brahmaboards.com/

And most recently, a company called P-40 is making boards in the $1000 range
https://p40bg.com/index.php?id_category=61&controller=category
There are some nice perks to these, like the ability to custom design them with different colors.

Where is the best place to play online backgammon?

[This is from one of my posts on Quora]

There are 3 different places that I would recommend for playing online.  All of these support match play, hold tournaments, and all support exporting log files of your matches to a format that can be analyzed by desktop backgammon software, like GNU Backgammon and eXtreme Gammon 

The first is GridGammon.  GridGammon is where the United States Backgammon Federation (USBGF) holds all of their online tournaments.  Consequently, there are many top-level players who play there.  As mentioned in other posts, GridGammon was derived from GamesGrid, which used to be one of the most popular places to play backgammon for money until playing for money became illegal in the US and GamesGrid was shut down.  GridGammon does not allow playing for money, so all of the USBGF tournaments are free to enter.  Registration is by invitation only, but the easy way to get an invitation is to sign up for a USBGF membership.  GridGammon requires software that you can download for free, but unfortunately it only runs on Microsoft Windows as of now.

If you don't want to join USBGF and/or can't play on Windows, then my next recommendation would be First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS).  FIBS is free and anyone can join.  You just need to download one of many client programs.  Different client programs  have different features and interfaces, but they all connect to the same server.  On Microsoft Windows, I would recommend Fibzilla.

My third choice would be DailyGammon.  With DailyGammon, instead of playing one live match all the way through at once, you play just a move at a time in many different matches.  You make your move whenever is convenient for you during the day (or week) and your opponent makes their move whenever they get online next.  So matches can drag on for weeks, but that's why people play dozens of matches at once.  One of the nice things about it is that you don't have to commit to playing a whole match at once, you can just play a few moves in a few minutes if that's all you have time for.  Another nice thing is that its all browser-based, so there is no special software to download.