The BSG’s rik marathon. Photo Rick Baats Rikken is a card game that is mainly played in North Brabant, Limburg and Belgium. On Saturday 23 August, the members of the Brabants Studenten Gilde (Brabant Student Guild, BSG) began their longest rik session ever, which ended 24 hours later.
BSG member Rick Baats: ‘As an association, we play rik a lot. We also keep track of the scores: if you have played a game with several BSG members, you can send the score to the scorekeeper. Many former members also participate, and every year we organise a final where current and former members come together to play. It’s a fun way to stay in touch.’
He looks back positively on last weekend’s rik marathon. ‘We started at eleven past eleven, a clear nod to carnival, of course. People came by, but we spent the entire 24 hours playing rik with a group of five players.’ Five die-hard rik players, then? ‘Or just a bunch of idiots,’ laughs Baats.
Cheers
With around 35 members, the BSG is one of the smaller associations in Wageningen. Baats has a nice story about the history of the guild. ‘I don’t know if it’s entirely true, but I once heard that the BSG was a sub-association at one of the larger Wageningen associations. They were once given a tour at Bavaria, a brewery in Brabant.
Afterwards, they were given a car full of beer. But because the association to which the BSG belonged did not serve Bavaria, the members were not allowed to drink it. So they locked themselves in the cellar and drank the entire stock. After that, they split off. That’s how we became an independent association.’
More BSG history, such as the tradition of the BSG building Maria chapels throughout Brabant, can be found on their website.
Translated with DeepL.com
