Moves are in place to beat the Covid-19 restriction blues with a board games bonanza set to be staged for families in Bahrain on Saturday.
Organised by the Indian Ladies Association’s (ILA) Share Your Skills subcommittee, a virtual session titled ‘Bonding with Board Games’ will take place between 4.30pm and 6.30pm.
A choice of two of the world’s most popular activities will be under the spotlight, namely competitive word play classic Scrabble and pretender to the popularity crown, Catan, a more recent settler trading sensation.
“Bonding With Board Games is an initiative to rekindle the joy of gathering around a board game as a family, play to win triumphantly, learn to lose gracefully and understand how life is an act of collaboration just like the board games,” said ILA President Nisha Rangarajan.
The session will start with a series of tips and tricks from World Scrabble Champion Akshay Bhandarkar and a demonstration game with Bahrain ace Irfan Siddiqui where the audience can give suggestions and analyse moves.
Participants can also connect with Catan alongside enthusiasts Stephan and Gina Singh. The board game focuses on trading, collaboration and the co-operation required to build a community as the settlers in new lands did centuries ago.
“These games are more than just moves on a board – they teach us life skills and attitudes,” believes Share Your Skills subcommittee member Rekha Utham. “Besides insider tips, we shall also explore winning attitudes and the power of these simple joys to bind a family together.”
Mr Siddiqui, a 42-year-old Bahraini of Indian heritage, is a professional Scrabble player and currently ranked in the Top 200 in the world. Most recently he took part in the 2019 world championships in Goa, prior to the pandemic.
Mr Siddiqui told the GDN that the Scrabble community in Bahrain was relatively small but had started to grow in recent months probably as a result of pandemic restrictions keeping people at home.
Mr Siddiqui
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, and be included in a standard dictionary
“In some countries it has grown exponentially like in Thailand, Nigeria, Pakistan, where there are certain individuals who helped take the game to the next level by involving school children and that’s the only way the game can grow in terms of numbers,” said Mr Siddiqui.
“The objective of this programme is to help people to get away from the gadgets, Netflix and video games, especially with the summer vacation here. Scrabble is a great option because it’s not just an activity that kills time it’s an intellectual game.
“It helps many facets of your brain. Scientifically there are many benefits, they say playing can help slow and prevent Alzheimer’s,” he said.
“There’s a huge difference between casual Scrabble and professional Scrabble, in casual people use words they know from their vocabulary, in pro Scrabble it’s about knowing all the words in the dictionary and being able to anagram them on the board and scoring the maximum number of points.”
Catan, previously known as Settlers of Catan, was first released in 1995 in Germany and has become a massive hit, with several updated versions and expansions being developed.
Players take on the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources.
Players gain points as their settlements grow; the first to reach a set number of points, typically 10, wins.
Ms Singh, a 34-year-old Canadian interior designer, told the GDN that playing board games during the pandemic had been a great way for people to do something with their families or a small group of friends.
“These types of games involve a little bit of thinking and a little bit of strategy. Catan has a little bit of negotiating as well, so you’re kind of bartering so it’s a great way to discuss things with people,” said Ms Singh.
“My husband and I, pre-pandemic would love to meet new people, and one of the great ways to break the ice is over board games, although it also brings up people’s competitive side.
“It has a mixture of everything, it’s a game where there’s going to be conversations.
“It might seem overwhelming initially, but once you play a couple of rounds it starts to click and you really get into it.”
*Non-members will be charged a small fee of BD2 per family while ILA members can join for free. Once registered, a link will be sent by email and text message. For more details call or message 36544054.
ghazi@gdn.com.bh
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