Whilst taking exercise is universally accepted as being good for
you, it is equally important to keep your mind stimulated. And no I
don’t mean binge-watching Westworld, no matter how
complicated it is. Though reading a book is the traditional pastime
for the learned, board games provide life lessons and philosophical
mic drops that can happen in 15 minutes, which novels will find
hard to keep the pace with. Here are five games you should master
and frankly, there’s no time like the present, literally.
Backgammon: An ancient, and noble game of
strategy, luck and cunning. The joy of backgammon lies in the
appreciation of the opponent’s good fortune and skill. One game may
last about quarter of an hour, but you can play several games in a
sitting so the odds are you will both experience the upper hand and
the dice supposedly working against you. You learn that victory can
be clutched from the jaws of defeat. The amount of backgammon games
I have seen that were all but lost and then a single roll changes
everything.
Chess: There are paintings of the Knights
Templar playing chess. Though the game predates them, it tells me
everything I need to know about chess. It’s the game for the most
badass medieval knights who knew all there was about protection,
scheming and strategy. Though like chess, the knights learnt the
hard way that actions, however powerful they make you, have
consequences that may only reveal themselves later in the game.
A highly complex derivation is a game called Kriegsspiel,
which is a war game invented by the Prussians to train
officers.
Monopoly: My mother banned Monopoly in our
house, citing my older brother’s tendencies to steal his neighbours
money without them knowing, an accusation he vehemently denies. The
key to monopoly is to remove all subjective approaches and stick
strictly to the objective. You should worry about what is logical
and what is about business strategy rather than which family member
you are about to fall out with. Monopoly is very much about
collecting £200 when passing go and also picking your lucky counter
(the top hat for me obviously), but once that novelty wears off and
houses/hotels can be made, the inner landlord in all of us beckons
and he with the business acumen will prevail. The lesson?
Businesses can’t have feelings.
Mahjong: Seems complex, largely because it is –
there are 144 tiles in a mahjong set. The aim is simple and not too
dissimilar from Rummy, which is to get a set or ‘meld’ of tiles
that match, discarding tiles you don’t need to eventually end up
with what you do need. There are however, three other people on the
table looking to do the same thing and so observation and memory
(not to dissimilar from poker) is recommended to keep track of
what’s on the table, and your chances of victory. The lesson to be
learnt is that we make our own luck and create our fortunes, but
others can get there first, so no dawdling.
Scrabble: Bear with me here, but Scrabble is
not for the faint-hearted. The rules aren’t where things get
complicated, there is almost no chance of not following. But within
its simplicity, lies its greatest challenge. For no matter how
dexterous a wordsmith you think you are, luck, and other people’s
use of double-vowel, two-letter words can leave you out of options,
and even an editor of a magazine that prides itself on fluid,
sesquipedalian use of language, is resigned to adding a ‘o’ to
either side of the promontory ‘n’. Scrabble teaches humility, and
keeping your tiles close to your chests, and an active, very
British dismissal of any suggestion from your friends and
competitors (nay, combatants), that you are sure to do well in the
upcoming game.
