Backgammon and online chess tournaments ... Egyptians challenge the boredom of Coronas

Mahmoud Seddik - Cairo

"Between the hammer of the Coronavirus and the partial curfew imposed on us, we lived inside the walls of our homes, bored us by boredom, and killed us by the slow time passing by as if forever."

This is how Egyptian civil servant Mohamed Hisham describes the moments of boredom he is going through, like many Egyptians who searched in Internet games for amusement that breaks the monotony of self-isolation and social divergence imposed by the fear of spreading the Corona virus.

Hisham used to sit with his friends in the evening to play chess at one of the cafes, but with the Egyptian authorities imposing a curfew since eight o'clock in the evening, he began looking for an alternative that would suit the period of home quarantine.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Hisham says that he started playing chess online, then invited his friends to participate in a competition to ignite enthusiasm, and the competition soon turned into a tournament and then into successive tournaments that they organize and participate in with a lot of enthusiasm and competition.

Attitudes and Odds
"It was an excellent idea to participate in an online chess tournament with friends, as it eased a lot of pressure, especially with the cumbersome behavior of my young children, which I did not get used to before, as the work cut into most of my time," according to Mohamed Nader, one of the participants in those tournaments. .

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Nader continues with a smile, "At the start of the tournament, I took a pillar at home away from the family to give myself an air of focus, and despite that, I sometimes lose matches because of one of the sons crying or my wife's continuous screaming with them. Withdrawing to delay playing. "

As for Ayman Ali, he complains that "the sudden interruption of the Internet, even for a few seconds, spoils the game, and if the interruption exceeds 25 seconds, the program considers you withdrawing, and calculates points for the opponent even if you are in control of the game."

He adds in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that "the idea of ​​the championship is wonderful and has eased the feeling of being imprisoned at home for two weeks, and has largely compensated for the social divergence imposed due to the fear of the spread of the pandemic."

In turn, the thirty, Ihab Adel, says that playing alone on the Internet is not accompanied by the pleasure of fighting friends on the cafe, and here came the idea of ​​team play, which later developed into competitions and championships, some of which last for a week, according to his talk to Al Jazeera Net.

The return of cafes

On the other hand, Ali Taya emphasizes that his colleagues who play table and chess himself and know them from the cafe, were more fortunate than those who were addicted to playing dominoes like him, as he was not allowed to know how to organize competitions and championships, and he also found that playing alone is not enjoyable and bored him, according to his talk For the Island Net.

For his part, Hassan Alyan - the owner of one of the cafes - says that he learned from his former clients that some of those who used to play chess, table and domino in the cafe, used modern technology to complete their hobby, but some of them went to organize competitions and tournaments as they were organizing in the cafe.

In his talk to Al-Jazeera Net, Alian hopes that the epidemic will be eliminated quickly so that he can return to his only source of livelihood, and indeed the source of the livelihood of eight young men who work with him and now find no compensation for them.

The art of balcony

In the context of breaking boredom as well, Egyptians published videos depicting funny cases of attempts to break the ban, such as a young man who comes out every evening to sing popular songs, or a young man playing a musical clip on his balcony, and the videos monitored response by the neighbors of these young men through applause and singing with them.

The Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sports launched an initiative titled "Art in the Balcony", in which it called on young people to offer lyric clips or play musical instruments on the balcony of homes during the curfew period, as an opportunity to discover new talents.

Egypt has extended partial curfews - with slight modifications - for another two weeks, ending on April 23, to reduce the spread of the Corona virus.

The measures included the suspension of air traffic, the partial closure of work in all government and private institutions and companies, and the complete closure of cafes.

It is noteworthy that the Central Bureau of Statistics estimated in a recent statistic the number of cafes in Egypt at two million, of which 150,000 are in Cairo alone. The percentage of Egyptians spending on cafes amounts to about 40% of their salaries, according to what was reported in the newspaper "Akhbar al-Youm" last August.