A World Championships tournament returns to Portsmouth next month – and anyone can be a part of it.
Competitors will gather for the Royal Naval Association’s World Uckers Championships at the Royal Maritime Hotel in Queen Street on Saturday 3 October.
Uckers is a supercharged version of ludo, created and developed by the Royal Navy over the past century and more to while away spare time on the mess decks.
Other branches of the military and allied forces around the world have picked up the game over the decades, with local rules (skimmers or surface fleet v WAFU or Fleet Air Arm, for example) causing many a ‘discussion’.
The competition in Portsmouth starts at 9.30 am and is open to anyone – you can enter on the day, with registration from 9am to 10am, and entry is free.
There are singles and doubles prizes up for grabs, and any standard of player is welcomed, from those old hands familiar with the dark arts of timber-shifting (cheating!) and the power of the blob (a barrier created by one side’s counters) to glory-hunting newcomers with more neck than a bag of giraffes.
New World Champions will be crowned on the day, and hopefully nobody ends up with their name inscribed on the reverse of the board – the fate of those who suffer the heaviest defeat, the so-called eight-piece dicking, when your rival gets all eight pieces home before you manage to get a single one to safety.
For more information please contact Milly Luxford at Royal Naval Association Central Office on ceo-ea@rnassoc.org
