GG AlNuaimi

Fatima Al Nuaimi learned the boards at the family majlis as a girl and has played them ever since, seventy-one years in which the doubling cube has never once entered the room. She does not object to it. She simply does not use it, the way she does not use a car she has never owned. Her checker play is quick and very old, timing and racing read at a glance from a lifetime of doing nothing else, and she moves faster than any grandmother has any right to. What the warmth hides is that she keeps score. She is one of the most competitive members in the tier, remembers exactly who has beaten her, and mentions it to them, kindly, at the start of the next game.