Precha's Plakat Mhors - Armed to the hilt, equipped with razor sharp teeth, tough mouths, strong and hard bodies, these are his best arena prospect at the moment. His fighters have been known to achieve considerable successes both at home and abroad. I have personally seen some of his male fighters been used as brood stock by local breeders upon retiring from Singapore arenas after recording good wins.

Precha's fighters under going the training phase. Notice the numbers on the tanks, it denotes the families and dates pertaining to the conditioning and training schedules.

Fighters are brought to the arenas in whisky bottles and are conveniently accommodated in carrier bags. Fighters are sized in such bottles, the caps are rarely opened and players sizes the fish by looking at the side view. Generally they will take only the tallness and length of the fish into consideration during sizing. With this method of sizing the breeders tend to favour in breeding fighters with a larger head (when viewed from the top) as this dimension are usually being ignored by the players, the result is that such fighters will have an added advantage during sizing. The Thai fighters in my view should have very large head (viewed from the top) as long as they do not hinder their fighting performance and are free from unsoundness.

This is the Thonburi arena in the out skirt of Bangkok, one of the many many arenas in Thailand. All the fighters involved are from the Plakat Mhor families, a favoured breed that fight long and hard. What is interesting in Thai arenas are that there are frequent visiting players coming from other towns to challenge the local fish fighters. They bring with them top notch fighters and are willing players for high stakes. Often they will also leave behind their used fighters for local breeders to breed, exerting a beneficial influence on the continuing development of the local breeds.

This reflects a similar situation in Singapore whereby Malaysian players regularly bring their fighters down for challenges. Many local players have contacts with their Malaysian counterparts, with the Ipoh strains being the most sort after. Much have been made by local breeders to use neighboring strains for out crossing, but with Singapore fighters, the Ipoh bloodlines might just be the most essential element in the genetic mix.

The arena owner with an old player. The arena has a makeshift food stall selling food and drinks. I had a bottle of mineral water and a meal of rice consisting of one fried egg and Thai styled spicy pork, for only 30 baht or SGD1.22. (just in case....they are tasty)

Once Thai players find suitable match for their fish, they will gently net their fighters into the fight jars. In Singapore, players are less gentle, they very often pour their fish. (nets are for dead fish :) )

The Thai fight jars are squared, with the top end 6 to 7 inches wide and starts narrowing towards the bottom. It provides good view from all 4 sides, superior to cylindrical types used in Singapore. Singapore players may find Thai fight bottles small though. Thai players enjoy betting in stages, they may start with a small bet but will increase the stakes gradually over the duration of the fights. This may explain the use of a squared jars for good visibility. Experienced players will sit with the back facing the light source as can be seen by those gentlemen in the picture above. They get the best view, while those facing the light will see silhouettes.... The old man in white did not move his butts through out the duration of the fight, not even leaving the seat to pee. (by the way the arena does not have toilets, they have gone green long time ago)

In Thai arenas, fights were always between 2 fighters and would last within the time frame decided by the referees or agreed upon by the players beforehand. The fight would ends with a result when one of the fish gave up and fled or had stopped flaring. Players would call for "test" when they saw one of the fish had stopped flaring or had stopped fighting. A referee would come in and check on the fighters. He would first check if indeed the fighters had stopped their fights, if so he would bring in a new jar with a fresh fish inside. Ideally the fresh fish should be of equal size to the two existing combatants and they would take turns to be netted into the fresh fish's jar. In arena jargon we call the fresh fish the "police" fish. Both the combatants would have to take five hits from the "police" fish and yet able to flare back or attack, with the weaker of the two challenging the "police" first. The combatants would resume their fights if both had passed the "test", this might went on for many more rounds of "testing" before a winner was finally decided. The number of "test" could also be fixed before hand by the players in which a tie or draw could be concluded if both the combatants had managed to pass all of them. In my opinion I had noticed fewer fatalities in such a ruling with the help of the "police" fish and fight time on average were also shorter.

In Singapore there were no "police" fish, very often both combatants were left to soak in the fight bottle for the entire duration of the fights which could last from 3 to 6 hours, by which time some fighters might had succumbed to their injuries and exhaustion and died in the bottles. Singapore players generally preferred fish that would fight till their very last breath and they need not had to flare and some fish might stay motionless to conserve energy to last the scheduled time frame to avoid defeat. Thai fighters on the other hand tends to flare at the least provocation, the Thai arena ruling requires that, and because of this their gill covers were more "flexible" but deemed "soft" by local players. Local fighters were bred to fight aggressively right from the very beginning, relentless in their pursuit to finish off their opponents. While Thai fighters took it slow, they favoured a long fight and went for the long haul with much patience. Thai fighters only need to keep flaring to remain in the game, calculated and accurate strikes to impede opponents from flaring were favoured over knocking them out of commission. My conclusion on this matter was that the arena ruling would affect the characteristics of the fighters and overtime breeders would gradually optimize their breeding program to take advantage of the prevailing rules and regulations of the respective arenas.

The differences in the fish fighting rules and regulations between the two countries also have an effect on how the game are played. In Singapore, players only need to size their fighters and pour their fish into the fight bottle. The fish will do the rest of the job for them, with no further work on the part of the players except to watch. In Thai arenas, wagers might be raised after each and every call for "test", a player thus need to monitor the fights closely in order to exercise sound judgement and uses their experience to take advantage of the situations. Situation awareness is the key in high stakes fights at Thai arenas, knowing when to "chase" and when not to are important. In my opinion Thai fish fighting system is not just a fight between the fishes but also pit players' wits and guts against one another.....certainly asked a lot more from Thai players then their Singapore counterparts....

That's me with Precha at a betta farm in Naklon Pathom, a town west of Bangkok. The farm has 1300 ponds, a large one indeed and specializes solely on fighting strain Plakat Mhors. I bought 2 Plakat Mhors from the farm as a souvenir for 50 baht each. (just in case...I am the younger one and slightly taller also)

The betta farm had an entire room for their brood stocks. More than 50 pairs of Plakat Mhors were in their conditioning tanks and countless numbers of individual males and female fighters were kept in square jars, taking up every part of the room. The conditioning of the brood fish might take several days and the males were placed in a small bottle within a larger one where the females reside. All the conditioning jars were filled with mosquito larvae for the fish to eat, many uneaten larvae could be seen wriggling about at the surface. Both pictures showed the set up of the conditioning tanks for the brood fish.

The fighters in the farm are raised in cylindrical concrete tanks, filled with water plants. The tank measure about 1.5m in diameter and held about 0.8m of water. Sunlight is plentiful, water is fairly clear and the residents are a healthy lot. The fish in the concrete tanks are said to be fed with water fleas, bloodworms and tubifex worms. The feeding trays are positioned close to the surface as can be seen from the above pictures.

A group of players were in the farm sourcing for fighters. I followed them and bought 2 fighters as souvenir from the tank that they had picked their fish.

The concrete tanks were well labeled for easy identification of the families residing in them. The base of the tanks were filled with a layer of clay. The picture on the right showed a new tank about ready to welcome it's first batch of residents. Like breeders everywhere, all would have their own little secrets in raising their fighters to give each and every fish a winning advantage at the arenas. What I could observe were clay been used at the bottom of the tank, probably to increase the mineral contents of the water.

This was the home of a Thai player, many players like him were also breeders themselves and he owned about one hundred over ponds of Plakat Mhors behind his house. In recent times many young breeders had started to introduce foreign fighters into their bloodlines, many of the out crossed hybrids had done well in the arenas. This player had kept some of his fighters in cylindrical bottles rather then the traditional squared jars, a practice not common in Thailand. In Singapore only display or show strains were kept in squared jars, never the fighting strains. I noticed the Thai players were an aesthetic lot, they appreciate their fighters, they were almost always kept in squared jars for good visibility, jar water in pristine condition and their fish rooms were neat and tidy.

At Jartujak market's fighter specialty shops. Many such shops were set up in the market, the fighters were all displayed neatly on the shelves with water plants in aged IAL water. In one of the shops they even set up a mini arena to fight fish. Large cylindrical tanks with crystal clear water and some plants were used for training the fighters. It was certainly a one stop location for all your fighter needs, from accessories to feeds, to fighters, trained or untrained and came with an arena to boot.

After a day at the arena, visiting the farms, Jartujak Market and meeting players, it was already nightfall and we headed for our dinner of steam boat cum barbeque.(Buffet style 99 baht per head or SGD4.06) The Thai hot sauces were fantastic, they came in many flavours, definitely one would suit your palate. I packed my two souvenir in plastic bottles and water proofed them before dumping them in my luggage bag.

My two souvenir, Thai bred Plakat Mhors at home. I also brought home a Thai magazine on Fighting Plakats, though I knew nothing about the Thai language and script.

email: redhillbetta@yahoo.com.sg