text browser game

I'm pretty noobish at web coding / webdev.  I'm trying to figure out how I could write a browser game using only JavaScript on the client-side (ie. no browser plug-ins).  But I'm stuck on figuring out how to handle everything server-side.

The only thing I've thought of is to store everything in a SQL database, and just have the AJAX post some information to a PHP file that will take care of everything.  However, I'm wondering if there are other, better ways of doing this that I can't think of.  I'm also not sure about handling concurrent players because I haven't done very much with databases before, so I'm not sure whether I'll have to worry about race conditions or something.

Any ideas or advice would be appreciated.

An intelligent OP, and useless but non-trolling replies. This thread is like bizarro /prog/.

I'm also not sure about handling concurrent players because I haven't done very much with databases before, so I'm not sure whether I'll have to worry about race conditions or something.
Ignore the folks saying to use alternative data stores. You do want SQL because you will want ACID compliance. You can handle concurrent connections through simple transactions and table locking.

If your game gets so popular that you need to migrate away from SQL, then congratulations, you're Facebook; sell it for a hundred million bucks and let someone else deal with it.

Also ignore the folks who say you don't need AJAX. You want real-time Javascript gameplay, not page reloads.

In fact, just ignore everyone here. We're all idiots. It sounds like you already know what you want, so go do it.