Laila Leonhardt
Full Name: Laila Leonhardt (former Svensson & Azoulay)
Date of birth: March 03, 1967.
Birth Place: Denmark
Current City of Residence: Sweden
Marital Status: Happily divorced in ’97, now living with boyfriend in Sweden.
Children: 6 computers
Occupation: Self-employed. Owner of SWAN games with Matt Reklaitis (Online Bridge site)
How I Started playing Backgammon: When touring dumpy joints playing billiard for money
Backgammon Nickname: lady
Current Skill level: I was an expert, now who knows. We can play a few money games and find out ?
Number of years playing Backgammon live: 14
Favorite Tournament Venue: Las Vegas and Monte Carlo
Titles won: Too many little trophies from tournaments in Europe and USA. Most proud of being first women to win a masters.
Favorite Backgammon book: Danny is my man. Favorite book is Vision Laughs at Counting
Favorite Music: Old time Jazz, Sarah Vaughan, The real group, Andreas Vollenweider and best of all… Frank Sinatra
Favorite Film(s):
– Until The End Of The World (William Hurt, Max Von Sydow)
– Farscape (all 4 seasons)
– Dune I and II (2 special 6 hour movies made for SCI FI channel)
Favorite Food: 3 Ps (Pasta Pesto Parmesan) and good ol’ steak and potatoes
Other Interests & Hobbies: Board game geek (Settlers of Catan especially)
Person I’d like most to meet:
I have dined Danny Kleinmann, I have chatted with Bill Gates, I have shook hands with princes and presidents, but Stephen Hawking is one I would like to meet the most.
Favorite Celebrity: I’ll settle for Kevin Costner still, but Clint Eastwood is a sure runner-up ?
If I could change anything in the world, I would… Make energy free, safe and non-polluting. Oil has too much power today.
If I could change anything in the Backgammon world, I would… eliminate any ladies tourneys and ladies prizes and force women to compete at same level as men. Backgammon is a mind sport n’est-ce pas?
Additional comments: My dear friend Jake Jacobs once upon a time wrote a biography on me. I still get a good laugh when reading it today: www.bg-info.com/laila_leonhardt.html
If you are the author of one or more backgammon books please type in their titles here:
– Columnist for the Danish Backgammon Federation for seven years
– Columnist for Chicago Point for three years.