Livestream of The U.S. Online Women’s National Championship

Antoinette-Marie Williams and Leyla Zaloutskaya will compete in the first of two semi-final matches of the 2023 U. S. Online Women’s National Championship on Wednesday, December 6, at 8 pm EST. Come join the Backgammon. Winning. Women. Zoom session and watch this contest between two of the top U.S. 

Antoinette-Marie Williams won the 2019 Ladies World Championship in Monte Carlo. She is an excellent long-time backgammon player, winning the Texas State Championship in 2017, and serving on the 2020 Women’s Team USA which won the Genud Cup. She is a member of the U.S. Backgammon Federation Board of Directors, and volunteers teaching backgammon to New York City school children and serving as the USBGF commentary manager for live and online American Backgammon Tour tournaments. For decades she was on staff of the team organizing the Backgammon World Championship with responsibility for assisting with travel and accommodations.

Leyla Zaloutskaya has a number of prestigious backgammon accomplishments. She won the 2023 5th Merit Open Montenegro Grand Prix Ladies Prize in the Masters Division and 3rd/4th in the Ladies event (Please note correction to previous announcement). She won the 2023 Cherry Blossom Women in Backgammon Cup, and placed first in the Doubles event at the 2023 Atlanta Spring Classic with partner Michael Neagu (Canada). She split 1st/2nd place with partner Michael Neagu in Jamaica in 2022. She won the Ladies event at the 3rd Northern Cyprus Linak Open Backgammon Championship in Famagusta in 2019.  She was a finalist to Sebastian Wilkinson on her first appearance in the top Masters division at the UK Bristol Backgammon Open in 2016. This is a rematch of sorts for Leyla with Antoinette: she was finalist in the 2017 Texas State Championship, losing narrowly to Antoinette in the final.

The match between the other semi-finalists Karen Davis and Tiffany Van will be featured the following week. These four women first competed in the World Backgammon Internet Federation 2023 Online Women’s World Championship, qualifying for the U.S. event by their win-loss records and/or Performance Rating (PR) out of 32 American women competing in the event.