There was another reason I knew I had rattled him. He suggested that we should increase our ten-peso game stake. When a man does that, you can be certain he thinks he’s already lost too much and is keen to win it back and as quickly as possible. But this is to ignore the central principle of backgammon, which is that it’s the dice that dictate how you play the game, not the cube or the money.

I sat back and sipped my schnapps. “How much were you thinking of?”

“Let’s say a hundred pesos a game.”

“All right. But on one condition. That we also play the beaver rule.”

He grinned, almost as if he had wanted to suggest it himself.

“Agreed.” He picked up the cup, and although it wasn’t his turn to throw first, he rolled a six.

I rolled a one. García won the throw and simultaneously made his bar point. He pushed himself close to the table, as if eager to win back his money. A little sheen of sweat appeared on his elephantine head, and, seeing it, I doubled immediately. García took the double and tried to double back until I reminded him that I hadn’t yet taken my turn. I rolled a double four, which took both of my runners past his bar point for the moment, rendering it redundant.

García winced a little at this but doubled all the same and then threw a two and a one, which disappointed him. I had the doubling cube now and, sensing I had the psychological advantage, turned the cube and said, “Beaver,” effectively doubling the cube without the requirement of his consent. I then paused and offered him a double on top of my beaver. He bit his lip at this and, already facing a potential loss of eight hundred pesos—on top of what he had already lost—he ought to have declined my double. Instead he accepted. Now I rolled a double six, which left me able to make my bar point and the ten point. The game had already turned my way, with a stake of sixteen hundred pesos.

His throwing became more agitated. First he cocked his dice. Then he threw a double four, which might have dug him out of the hole he was in but for the fact that one of the fours was in his outer board and therefore could not count. Angrily he snatched up both dice, dropped them into the cup, and threw them again, with considerably less success: a two and a three. Things deteriorated rapidly for him after that, and it wasn’t long before he was locked out of my home board, with two checkers sitting on the bar.