KARACHI: “Pakistan is well set to become the finest scrabble playing country. I expect a world champion to emerge from Pakistan in the near future as Pakistan is consistently producing world champions at the youth level,” said Dave Brannan, chairman of Mind Sports International, who flew in from England to meet with the officials of the Pakistan Scrabble Association on Friday.

He hoped that other mind sports in Pakistan will follow the example of scrabble and work in unison to grow mind sports and attract more players to mind sports. During a press conference, Mr Brannan also announced the launching of the Mind Sports Education programme in Pakistan and assured full support of Mind Sports International to its local partner PSA.

For the programme volunteers from Pakistan Scrabble Association will visit schools all over Pakistan and give basic training to players while also enrolling them for further training to www.mindsportseducation.com

Further training will be conducted online by the top players in Pakistan as well as international stars including the reigning world champion Brett Smitheram of England.

There will be online games, leagues and tournaments on the sister website www.midsportsacademy.com . Players from all parts of Pakistan will be able to not only get training there but also take part in the online tournaments while sitting in the comfort of their home

“Initially scrabble and chess will be the main components of this program but there are plans to add other mind sports including bridge, etc., in future,” he said.

He also announced the Mindsports World Championship to be played in Doha Qatar from August 19 to 27 for both adults and youth. Over 2,000 players from over 40 countries are expected to take part in the championship. There will be a cash pool of over US $200,000 for all games including scrabble and chess.

Speaking on the occasion, PSA’s Vice President Tariq Pervez announced his plans for organising an international scrabble tournament in Karachi during January 2018.

Mr Brannan pledged his support for the tournament and assured the fullest cooperation of the international body to bring the world’s top players to Pakistan in 2018. “This will be the greatest boost to scrabble in Pakistan and local players will get an opportunity to play along with the world’s greatest players,” he said.

The Secretary Sports and Youth Affairs, Government of Sindh, Mr Saleem Raza Khuhro alao announced unconditional support for holding the international tournament in Pakistan and assured PSA of providing all necessary facilities for the international tournament.

Mr Khuhro also promised to try his best to allocate some funds for the Pakistan team to participate in the world championship in August especially the youth team, which is expected to win the championship.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2017