Dario De Toffoli
Encyclopedia
Dario De Toffoli is an Italian board game
designer, gamebook author and elite games player who founded the games company Studiogiochi and established many games events. Born in 1953 Venice
, after an early career as Chemist he entered the world of games. Winner of over 60 medals at the Mind Sports Olympiad
. He won the 2002 Pentamind Competition for the best games all-rounder in the world. In 2006, he won a special award for his contribution to games which includes contribution to all aspects of games.
In the 90's Dario, with the help of his company, staged the first 5 Italian Festivals of games, the largest in Italy. Other significant events established by Dario include the Mind Sports player competition Giocatore dell'Anno and the Venice International Backgammon Tournament.
Another event that Dario established is one of the few board game design competitions: Premio Archemede (the Archemedes prize) dedicated to Alex Randolph
. An international competition where the along with the prize the winner has their game displayed in the Swiss museum of games.
In the latter, he is credited with bringing to light that the origins of backgammon went back 500 years further than had previously been reported.
He is also a successful backgammon player having won numerous competitions and produced a book on the subject for La Stampa
newspaper. He is a top class player having world rating of over 1500 at the end of the 2009 season.
However, Dario's impact on the game is most significant through his involvement in establishing the European backgammon scene. The Venice International Backgammon Tournament established by De Toffoli was one of the first two major backgammon tournaments in Europe along with the Nordic Open Backgammon Tournament. The tournament is one of the most important in the world and forms part of the European Backgammon Tour
. Dario is primarily known for being a leading technician in the game being asked for views on poker and as a TV commentator as he has yet to win a major cash tournament.
In 2008, Dario became the Amateur Poker World Champion an event that is not played for money
to world championship
s in two new games: Continuo
in 2002 and David Parlett
's Hare and Tortoise
in 2010.
He has won over 60 medals at the Mind Sports Olympiad
. In 2002 he became the oldest winner of the Pentamind
World championship an event to find the best games all-rounder in the world. This victory was achieved in the middle of Demis Hassabis
5 victories to whom he had earlier managed to finish second against.
and for La Stampa
newspaper.
of games" and the "1001 games for everyone". His works also include several puzzle books and a book on draughts.
and Kakuro board games and themed board games such as for the Totally Spies! cartoon series.
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
designer, gamebook author and elite games player who founded the games company Studiogiochi and established many games events. Born in 1953 Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, after an early career as Chemist he entered the world of games. Winner of over 60 medals at the Mind Sports Olympiad
Mind Sports Organisation
The Mind Sports Organisation is an association for promoting mental-skill games including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad main event.The MSO was founded in conjunction with...
. He won the 2002 Pentamind Competition for the best games all-rounder in the world. In 2006, he won a special award for his contribution to games which includes contribution to all aspects of games.
Contribution to games
The Personalita Ludica dell'Anno (PLDA) award the prize to the games personality of the year. In 2006, instead of the normal competition the PLDA made a lifetime achievement award to Dario De Toffoli for his "career" in games.In the 90's Dario, with the help of his company, staged the first 5 Italian Festivals of games, the largest in Italy. Other significant events established by Dario include the Mind Sports player competition Giocatore dell'Anno and the Venice International Backgammon Tournament.
Another event that Dario established is one of the few board game design competitions: Premio Archemede (the Archemedes prize) dedicated to Alex Randolph
Alex Randolph
Alexander Randolph was a designer of board games. Randolph's game creations include TwixT, Breakthru, Inkognito , Raj, Ricochet Robot, and Enchanted Forest ....
. An international competition where the along with the prize the winner has their game displayed in the Swiss museum of games.
Scrabble in Italian
Dario was one of the top players in scrabble in Italian. The world championship in Italian scrabble was not founded until 2008 before that there were Majors. Dario had multiple top 3 finishes in these competitions and won the Masters in 1997.Backgammon
Dario De Toffoli is the foremost expert in backgammon in Italy. He wrote two of the key books on backgammon in Italian: "the rules of the game" and "the big book of backgammon"In the latter, he is credited with bringing to light that the origins of backgammon went back 500 years further than had previously been reported.
He is also a successful backgammon player having won numerous competitions and produced a book on the subject for La Stampa
La Stampa
La Stampa is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The current owner is the Fiat Group.-History:...
newspaper. He is a top class player having world rating of over 1500 at the end of the 2009 season.
However, Dario's impact on the game is most significant through his involvement in establishing the European backgammon scene. The Venice International Backgammon Tournament established by De Toffoli was one of the first two major backgammon tournaments in Europe along with the Nordic Open Backgammon Tournament. The tournament is one of the most important in the world and forms part of the European Backgammon Tour
Poker
Dario wrote the first book on Texas Hold'em in Italian and has since then co-written two more of the only books in Italian on poker with Max PescatoriMax Pescatori
Massimiliano Pescatori is an Italian professional poker player.Pescatori is a regular on the poker tournament scene, often placing high in Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year Race....
. Dario is primarily known for being a leading technician in the game being asked for views on poker and as a TV commentator as he has yet to win a major cash tournament.
In 2008, Dario became the Amateur Poker World Champion an event that is not played for money
Games All-rounder
Dario is one of the of the most successful games players of all-time. Perhaps his most notable achievement is as an all-round games player. He has won championships in games ranging from OwareOware
Oware is an abstract strategy game of Akan origin. Part of the mancala family, it is played throughout West Africa and the Caribbean. Among its many names are Ayò , Awalé , Wari , Ouri, Ouril or Uril , Warri , Adji , and Awélé...
to world championship
World championship
A world championship is the top achievement for any sport or contest. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best nation, team, individual in the world in a particular field. Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead...
s in two new games: Continuo
Continuo (game)
Continuo is an abstract strategy game by Maureen Hiron first published in 1982. It is played by arranging patterns printed on a deck of 42 cards, each card being printed with a grid of 16 colored squares. The goal is to place cards so that the tiles match as many chains of color as possible....
in 2002 and David Parlett
David Parlett
David Parlett is a games scholar from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. His published works include many popular books on games and the more academic volumes "Oxford Guide to Card Games" and "Oxford History of Board Games", both now out of print...
's Hare and Tortoise
Hare and Tortoise
Hare and Tortoise is a German-style board game designed by David Parlett in 1974 and first published by Intellect Games. In 1978 it was released by Ravensburger in Germany, where the game became a huge hit. It has since sold some 2 million units in at least ten languages, including two known...
in 2010.
He has won over 60 medals at the Mind Sports Olympiad
Mind Sports Organisation
The Mind Sports Organisation is an association for promoting mental-skill games including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad main event.The MSO was founded in conjunction with...
. In 2002 he became the oldest winner of the Pentamind
Mind Sports Organisation
The Mind Sports Organisation is an association for promoting mental-skill games including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad main event.The MSO was founded in conjunction with...
World championship an event to find the best games all-rounder in the world. This victory was achieved in the middle of Demis Hassabis
Demis Hassabis
Demis Hassabis is a computer game designer, AI programmer, neuroscientist and world-class games player. A child prodigy in chess, he reached master standard at the age of 13 with an Elo rating of 2300...
5 victories to whom he had earlier managed to finish second against.
Games Journalist
Dario has contributed hundreds of articles and puzzles for newspapers and magazines. His contributions include for Giochi Magazine, Il GazzettinoIl Gazzettino
Il Gazzettino is an Italian daily local newspaper, based in Mestre, Italy. Is the main newspaper in the Northeast Italy and is one of the oldest newspaper in Italy.Currently it publishes 8 different local editions:#Venice#Treviso#Padua#Belluno#Rovigo...
and for La Stampa
La Stampa
La Stampa is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The current owner is the Fiat Group.-History:...
newspaper.
Game and Puzzle Book Author
As well as strategic books De Toffoli is one of the leading authorities on games having written "the encyclopediaEncyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
of games" and the "1001 games for everyone". His works also include several puzzle books and a book on draughts.
Games Designer
As well as owning the company Studiogiochi, Dario has personally designed and co-designed several board games. The most notable of which are Lex Arcana and Vampiri in salsa rossa role-playing based games. More recent games have had a more mainstream focus such as SudokuSudoku
is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...
and Kakuro board games and themed board games such as for the Totally Spies! cartoon series.
List of Games Designed
- Kluges Kopfchen
- Totally Spies
- Poker Cinese
- Trova le mine
- Joker Poker
- Happy birthday!
- Nebraska
- Babar et le mistere des lettres perdues
- Kakuro challenge
- Kakuro (board game)
- Challenge Sudoku
- Mango Tango
- Sudoku (board game)
- Challenge Sudoku - Kakuro Challenge
- Number one
- Ketch up
- Yummy
- Buon compleanno
- Adventure cards
- Dummy
- Theseus
- I giochi della frutta
- Abaco zuzzurellone
- Lex Arcana
- Jagd der Vampire
List of Books Written
- Dario De Toffoli, Max PescatoriMax PescatoriMassimiliano Pescatori is an Italian professional poker player.Pescatori is a regular on the poker tournament scene, often placing high in Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year Race....
& Giorgio Sigon, A scuola di Poker, Sperling & Kupfer, 2010, ISBN 978-82-2004-890-7 - Giampaolo Dossena & Dario De Toffoli,Enciclopedia dei giochi,Mondadori, Milan, 2009, ISBN 978-88-2004-760-3
- Max Pescatori & Dario De Toffoli, Giocare e vincere a poker online, Sperling &Kupfer, Milan, 2009, ISBN 88-2004-760-8
- Dario De Toffoli & Leo Colovini, Il grande libro degli scacchi, ISBN 978-88-2004-794-8
- Dario De Toffoli, Il grande libro del Backgammon, Stampa Alternativa, 2008, ISBN 978-88-6222-035-4
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, 1001 Giochi per tutti, Mondolibri, Milan, 2008, ISBN 978-88-2004-712-2
- Dario De Toffoli, Dario Zaccariotto & Leo Colovini, Brainquiz, Sperling & Kupfer, Milan 2008, ISBN 978-88-2004-550-0
- Dario De Toffoli, Dario Zaccariotto & Margot De Rosa, Numeri, Stampa Alternativa,Viterbo, ISBN 978-88-6222-052-1
- Dario De Toffoli,Il grande gioco del Poker, Mondadori, Verona, 2008
- Dario De Toffoli, Il grande libro del Poker, Sperling and Kupfer, Milan, 2007ISBN 978-88-2004-389-6
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, Cibo per la mente - Vol III,Stampa Alternativa, Viterbo, 2007, ISBN 88-7226-960-1
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, KAFKA, Sperling and Kupfer, Milan, 2007
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, Sfida al quadrato, Sperling and Kupfer, Milan, 2006, ISBN 978-88-7339-120-3
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, Cibo per la mente II, Stampa Alternativa, Viterbo, 2005, ISBN 978-88-7226-893-3
- Dario De Toffoli, Il giocatore consapevole, Stampa Alternativa, Viterbo, 2004, ISBN 88-7226-824-9
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, Cibo per la mente I, Stampa Alternativa, 2004, ISBN 88-7226-816-8
- Dario De Toffoli, Guida al poker, Conde Nast, Milan, 2004
- Dario De Toffoli, Giochi, Unicopli, Viterbo, 2003, ISBN 88-400-0914-0
- Dario De Toffoli, Backgammon, Tutte le regole del gioco, Nuovi Equilibri, Stampa Alternativa, Viterbo, 2002, ISBN 88-7226-704-8
- Dario De Toffoli, Giocare e vincere a Poker, Stampa Alternativa, 2002, ISBN 978-88-7226-716-5
- Dario De Toffoli, Dario Zaccariotto, Michele Comerci & Claudio Borgnino, Giocare con le parole, La Scuola, Brescia, 2000
- Dario De Toffoli & Dario Zaccariotto, Dama, Unicopli, Viterbo, 2000 ISBN 978-88-8776-608-0
- Dario De Toffoli, Nel mondo dei cruciverba, Unicopli, Viterbo, 2000, ISBN 978-88-8776-605-9
- Dario De Toffoli, Scala quaranta, pinnacolo e dintorni, Unicopli, Viterbo, 2000, ISBN 978-88-7307-317-4
- Dario De Toffoli, Backgammon, La StampaLa StampaLa Stampa is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The current owner is the Fiat Group.-History:...
, 1999 - Dario De Toffoli, Giocare a Backgammon, Arsenale, Venice, 1991 ISBN 978-88-6222-035-4
- Dario De Toffoli, Giocare a Scarabeo, Sansoni Editore, Florence, 1985
External links
- studiogiochi website http://www.studiogiochi.com
- Video interview for la stampa alternativa http://www.stampalternativa.it/wordpress/2009/03/23/la-parola-ai-numeri-di-dario-de-toffoli