Lars Bønding - Denmark

Lars Bønding is another very strong Danish backgammon player who began to appear in tournament results at the start of the 21st century and who is listed as the #5 on GammonLuck.com with an average World Class by Snowie of 2.774 (checkerplay error rating) in 18 analyzed matches submitted.

At the 1st Lucien Barrière Backgammon Open held at Enghien-les-Bains, France in 2003, Bønding rolled his way to the final of the 90-player Championship flight to confront and defeat the current #3 Giant of Backgammon, François Tardieu of France. Lars Bønding was also declared 2003 Danish Player of the Year at the 16th Nordic "Wide" Open in Copenhagen by the Danish Backgammon Federation.

Also in 2003, Lars Bønding teamed up with two other Danes, Morten Holm and Michael Olsen, to try and win the 18-team, $10,000-entry Pro Am in Las Vegas. The Danish team came close making it the semi-finals where they were eliminated by current #1 Backgammon Giant, Matvey 'Falafel' Natanzon (Israel) and his then partner, Ken Arnold of the USA, who at the time was the owner of the GamesGrid backgammon server. Natanzon and Arnold were then defeated by Californians Nack Ballard and Wayne McClintock in the final.

More determined than ever, Bønding returns to the next Pro Am in 2004, this time teaming up with Katja Sophie Spillum of Norway, the 2002 Champion of Europe... they reach the final where, again, one must beat Nack Ballard and Wayne McClintock of the USA to take the title... but the Scandinavian team failed to win and Ballard (then Giant #1) and McClintock take the Pro Am for the second year in a row.

Another victory under Bønding's belt was the Super Jackpot of the 15th European Backgammon Championships, which at the time were held in Nova Gorica, Slovenia in September of 2003 – that event is now played annually in May in Velden, Austria. In September of 2004, Bønding returns to Nova Gorica and wins first place in the Masters of the 14th Mitteleuropa Backgammon Championship.

At this point, Lars begins to play poker professionally goes to the 36th World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas in 2005 where he wins $317,625 for second place in the $2,500 No Limit Hold'em event on June 24th. Later the same year, Bønding wins another $199,870 for first place in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em at the Fourth Annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas. He has since cashed at many other Poker tournaments but could not resist coming to Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas in January of 2007 for the Atlantis Million event – and although he did not win the main event, Bønding did win the $5000 Doubles there with partner Mark Teltscher of England.