Pattaya bar girls use Connect Four to break the language barrier

If there’s one game that girls in Pattaya’s bars like to play, it’s Connect Four. That’s how it is; I’m talking about that silly game most of us played as kids. Connect Four is widely used in Pattaya bars as a means to communicate across the cultural divide that exists between Western men and Pattaya girls.

In case you forgot, the game is like a 3D version of tic tac toe. It is played on a vertical board seven spaces wide and six spaces high. Players wear “men” which are similar to checkers. The men are colored red and black and each player starts with 21 men.

The board is similar to a cage. Players alternate dropping their men, one by one, through slots in the top of the cage. The object of the game is to be the first player to place four men in a row. The four in a row can be vertical, horizontal or diagonal.

There is hardly a bar in Pattaya, Thailand that does not have this game available. I’ve seen it in every bar I’ve been to in this part of the country. It is popular because it allows the girls to communicate with customers despite the language barrier.

You see, Western men flock to Pattaya due to its reputation as a destination for sex tourism. Most of the guys who come to town, however, don’t speak a bit of Thai and the girls at the bar they seek don’t speak English. That’s where Connect Four comes in.

At some point, an enterprising bar owner introduced this game and it has become a Pattaya institution ever since. The couples you see playing are smiling, laughing, drinking and having a great time together even though they don’t speak the same language. Connect Four is their common language.

Some of the Pattaya girls have become very skilled at the game. I never realized how technical the game really was until I did a Google search. There are strategies that are quite complex and at least one mathematician has written his entire master’s thesis on the game. Some of the girls know the strategy and like to play for free drinks.

A friend of mine who lives full time in Pattaya swears that it’s also an erotic game. He claims to have been in love with a beautiful girl from Pattaya with eyes as deep and beautiful as a crystal ball. This girl has come up with a variation of the game where you are not allowed to look at the board while playing.

According to their rules, each player can only look into the other player’s eyes when their checkers are put into play. You must guess the position of the tiles by the look in your opponent’s eyes. Apparently, this girl is hypnotic because my friend can’t stop talking about how beautiful she is and won’t let anyone else know where she works.

Regardless of which variant is played, this simple children’s game has become an indispensable language tool in the lives of Pattaya bar girls and their Western boyfriends. If you are planning a trip to Pattaya, you should definitely learn how to play Connect Four before you travel.