Walter Trice, a well known and highly respected backgammon player, theorist, analyst and author; had live in Massachusetts (USA) his entire life until his sudden death, at the age of 60, in 2009. Trice had been a professional backgammon player for more than 30 years, although restricted himself to events inside the USA. His international reputation as a top analyst and theorist was acquired by the books and articles he had written and the pip count method he had developed.
Trice was ranked at no. 8 on ABT all-time standing and appeared in the top 32 Giants of Backgammon ranking list on four different occasions. He won first place in the championship flight of the Las Vegas Backgammon Open in 2004, as well as the 2004 Indiana Open Backgammon Tournament.
Trice was the author of the classical 'must-read' book, Backgammon Boot Camp, which is an anthology of backgammon articles, released in 2004. He wrote those articles by the request of the famous backgammon consultant and online magazine editor, Michael Strato, who was looking for a series of articles for beginner backgammon players. The articles had gained an enormous success among backgammon community members at all skill levels.
'Can a Fish Taste Twice as Good?' was his first book, written together with Jake Jacobs and published in 1996; the book presents a mathematical analysis of unequal backgammon matches.
In addition to writing books, Trice had created a backgammon program called Bear-off Quizmaster; and more importantly, developed a very effective pip count method, named Tricecount in his memory. According to the method a player can calculate the pip count by multiplying the average pip value of a roll by the average number of rolls needed to remove all of his checkers.