KARACHI: The Pakistan Scrabble Association (PSA) held its first ever Ramazan night tournament at the Beach Luxury, Karachi this weekend.
According to six-time national champion Waseem Khatri, the night event was initiated by PSA Youth director Tariq Pervez to help train players for the upcoming World Youth Scrabble Championship (WYSC) scheduled to take place in August in Sri Lanka.
“The night tournament is new to us, but we want to utilise this time,” Khatri, who is mentoring the top 10 youth players in the country, told The Express Tribune.
“It’s very important for players like me to impart whatever I know to the younger lot. I play with them so that I can give them a tough competition. This ranking tournament is there to practice and also have fun while we can.”
Khatri said that at least 30 to 40 players showed up for the first competition, including seniors like M Inayat, other than the WSYC players.
“Even those not competing in the WYSC were welcome to join; it was more of an experiment.
“The reason we came up with the night event was to create a bond; we had sehri together and prayed collectively. These experiences help the players’ confidence.
“We spent more than 10 hours together. It’s grueling, but at the same time, this tournament will build stamina and improve the players’ concentration because WYSC is a very demanding event.”
The players sat for 11 games, which roughly means 10 hours of play. And according to Khatri, the top two contenders Moizullah Baig and Mariam Arif regularly manged to defeat him during the practice games.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 21st, 2014.
Like Sports on Facebook, follow @ETribuneSports on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ