BY TOM SOMACH

One of the most popular Internet backgammon sites in the world is adding the most popular card game in the world.

Backgammon Masters (www.backgammonmasters.com), where gamers from around the globe have long enjoyed the online version of the game of pips and doubling cubes, will now offer the online version of the game of bad beats and royal flushes.

(Poker will actually be the third online game now offered on the site, as it already had offered both backgammon and perudo, a Latin American dice game.)

In a press release issued the other day, the Nicosia, Cyprus-based company announced: “Backgammon Masters, a well-recognized brand within the online community, recently added poker to its game lobby, thus making it the first 3-in-1 gaming software of its kind. Designed with the same standard of excellence and graphically rich format as their top-ranking online backgammon and perudo games, Backgammon Masters is revolutionizing the way poker is being played on the Net.

“Recognizing the popularity of poker among seasoned backgammon and perudo players, the newly-upgraded software allows the player to access all three games right from the game lobby. When playing all three games simultaneously, the player is instantly connected to a massive network of other players from around the world. The new poker software features vivid 3-D graphics, lifelike avatars and hi-fi sound.

“Included in the main game lobby is a listing of all the players currently online playing all three games–backgammon, perudo and poker–which allows fans of community gaming and multi-player software to see and easily decide which game to join. Unlike other gaming applications, the Backgammon Masters software allows the player to access all three popular games via the same account and wallet. That means the player only needs to download one gaming software in order to play three distinct and exciting games: backgammon, perudo and now poker.

“The Backgammon Masters software is totally free and poker can be played for fun or for real money wagering. Newbies to backgammon, poker and perudo are welcome to learn the games for free with no risk of losing money whatsoever.”

Online poker players who play at other sites and are thinking of migrating to Backgammon Masters for their poker fix need to heed a warning, however–no bad-mouthing the website!

In a section on the Backgammon Masters website titled “Code of Conduct,” the company outlines what kind of inappropriate language is banned from its on-site chatrooms: “Please do not use rude, abusive, foul, or otherwise offensive language on our chat boards. Players who violate this rule will have their accounts suspended as deemed necessary by the Backgammon Masters staff.”

There’s nothing unusual about that request, as most online poker rooms have similar rules, in order to maintain a modicum of decorum during game play.

What is unusual, though, is what the “Code of Conduct” states next: “You are not permitted to make any untrue, malicious or damaging comments about Backgammon Masters in any public media or forum.”

Oh, really?

It’s one thing for a website to ban offensive language on the website; after all, it’s their toy.

But for a website to declare that none of its users can post negative comments about the website ANYWHERE ELSE, that appears to be going a little too far.

Apparently, Backgammon Masters thinks it has total control over every newspaper, magazine, radio station, televison station and Internet site in the world, not to mention anyone who talks to those media.

Is it in for a surprise.

Because it’s one thing to control the backgammon media, what there is of it (and there’s not much).

Now that the website’s added poker, though, it will be quite another thing to try to control the poker media, which is about 100 times as large.

So don’t even try.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)