Dana Nazarian - USA

    Dana Nazarian was born in 1966 and raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston and the historic town where the American Revolutionary War began. Nazarian is the Vice-President at Cypress Semiconductor; a silicon valley based semiconductor company and runs one of the largest business units for the company, Synchronous SRAM Business Unit.

    Backgammon Player from Childhood

    Dana says, “I don't remember exactly when I started playing backgammon, but it was probably when I was about six or seven years old. I am 100% Armenian and backgammon is an integral part of Armenian culture. My dad played with his dad and his uncles during the Depression and he in turn taught me at a very young age. He showed no mercy too! He never purposely let me win and he taught me many things as a young child that are still part of my backgammon arsenal. Backgammon was a huge part of my childhood. I would estimate that my dad and I played three hours per day, seven days a week for 10 years straight.”

    Dana has also played backgammon online, on the GamesGrid server, “but that site just dissolved and so I will be looking for a new site to play on soon”, he said.Despite playing hundreds of thousands of games with his father, Dana had never entered a live backgammon tournament nor really knew about them, that is, until he moved to Minneapolis in the late 1990's and found out about the Minneapolis Backgammon Club. He began playing there and learnt about the various big U.S. tourneys – his first live event was the 1999 Pittsburgh Championship where he played Intermediate and lost in the Semi-Finals. He has since played only in the higher Championship Division.

    As for his opinion of the Giants of Backgammon poll, Dana says, “I agree with the intent and I am truly honoured to be included on a short list of extremely talented players. I appreciate all who recognized my ability, so I don't want to sound disrespectful, but the process is severely flawed for many reasons. I realize that there is no perfect solution but in my opinion, if the world's best backgammon players are going to be recognized, there needs to be some sort of quantitative criterion (e.g. error rates, ratings a la ‘Kent Goulding', tournament results, etc.) as a major input to the selection process”.

    Backgammon - the Greatest Game

    Dana believes that, “Backgammon is the greatest game invented. I am passionate about the game and wish I could play and promote it more but work and family keep me pretty busy”.It is the first time Nazarian appears on the top 32 Giants of Backgammon list. Amongst many victories and money wins, Dana won the Super 32 Jackpot at the California State Backgammon Championship in 2007, and in the same year, first place in the Championship flight at the 29th Pittsburgh Backgammon Championships. At the 10th Minnesota Open Backgammon Championships in 2005 he won both the main Championship flight and first place in the Mystic Masters Jackpot.