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THE Festival of the Mind will be in Bahrain later this month with visitors from across the region learning how mind sports can help develop their mental faculties.
But the mind games involved, though perhaps more sophisticated than in days gone by, are nothing new.
Men and women have been games players for more than 10,000 years, since the dawn of civilization, and the writings of the earliest ancient civilizations regularly make reference to games similar to naughts and crosses.
Something like draughts is known to have been played in ancient Egypt and the game of Go was referred to in Chinese texts of around 1000BC.
Chess is said to have originated in India around 600AD under the name Chaturanga, a word describing the four traditional army units of Indian military forces: foot soldiers (pawns); cavalry (knights); chariots (rooks) and elephants (today's bishops).
Since the 1970s however, it has been suggested that China already had a version of chess before India with mentions of Xiang Qi (Chinese chess) cropping up in documents during the Warring States' period from 403-221BC.
To Plato, games were even considered a vital part of a leader's training and board games have been portrayed by artists throughout the ages from ancient Greece and Rome to the illuminated manuscripts of medieval monks.
And mind sports played a vital role in the lives of many acknowledged geniuses. For example As-Suli (854-946AD), the first chess grandmaster from the Baghdad of the Caliphs, can be seen as a symbol of the great Islamic culture that flourished in Baghdad at a time when Europe was still in the Dark Ages.
At this year's festival organiser Tony Buzan, who invented Mind Mapping, will be conducting workshops backing up his philosophy that 'learning how to learn is life's most important skill'.
He described last year's festival in Bahrain as the best ever.
As Bahrain prepares for the Festival of the Mind and World Memory Championships we are giving you a taste of what's to come. Here are the answers to last week's brain teasers. See how you did ... then read on for this week's posers.
Answers:
1. Valuable - Invaluable
2. The Tokyo Olympics were held in 1964.
3. The resolution not to keep any resolutions.
4. There are many possible answers, including A is Monday and B is Thursday.
Questions:
1. Why is this number unique? 8,549,017,632.
2. You are in a quiz show with a chance to win a million pounds by selecting the correct box from three. The host - and this is very important - knows which box contains the million. You make your choice and then the host opens one of the other boxes to reveal it as empty. He then offers you the chance to change your mind and select the remaining box. Should you do this?
3. Can you arrange three matchsticks of equal length to form a square?
4. What do the words silver, purple, orange and month have in common?
BRAIN FLASH
The most celebrated mind sports tragedy occurred in Kansas in 1931 when John Bennett played a friendly hand of bridge with his wife against their neighbours, the Hoffmans. Mr Bennett played so badly that his wife left the room, returned with a pistol and shot him dead. Mrs Bennett was tried for murder but acquitted!
