Improper Fraction Arena
The Improper Fraction Arena (Blepian: Limistéar Codán Míréasúnta) is the national sport of Blepia. It can be played anywhere. In the game, improper fractions are stated, and the first player to convert them to a mixed number buzzes in. If they are correct, they do not get a strike. All other players get a strike. Once a player has three strikes, they are burnt to death. The last player standing wins.
History
While the Improper Fraction Arena is practiced worldwide professionally, the sport originates from Blepia as an educational activity.
Origins
The Improper Fraction Arena was started as a joke between a group of high schoolers in the year 1972 in the city of Port na Gaoithe. After maths class, they would sit around a table. One of them would read off improper fractions from their homework. The first person to convert it to a mixed number did not get a strike, everyone else got a strike, and the first person/people to reach three strikes had to tape a paper to their back stating that they lost the IFA. This was quickly picked up on by other children in the school until it became a recreational activity. Eventually, organized sessions of the arena were created and scheduled regularly. By this time adults started to participate in the sport with an improper fraction arena club popping up on the town square.
Spread across Blepia
In 1973-74 other cities started to pick up on the Improper Fraction Arena, the first being Cuirfimid Báis. Cuirfimid Báis was very important to the history of the Improper Fraction Arena due to their revision of the rules. Before the establishment of the IFA Board, the Improper Fraction Arena was a very light game with no consequence and loose rules. The IFA Board created a rulebook including that instead of taping a paper to your back when you got three strikes, you were instead burned to death.
This caused lots of controversy among IFA players but eventually it was accepted by the community and the original version of Improper Fraction Arena is now commonly known as IFA Lite. For the first time, Improper Fraction Arena games were making national news and tens of thousands of Blepians were crowding around their televisions watching them. This fueled the launching of IFA clubs all across Blepia; however most non-professional IFA clubs use the IFA Lite rulebook produced by the IFA Board. The prevalence of IFA clubs in Blepia can be compared to the prevalence of pubs or bars in other countries.
International Adoption
While the Improper Fraction Arena was and has always been uniquely Blepian, its popularity outside of Blepia has led to an international professional IFA league being founded in February of 2017, but no players from outside Blepia have registered with it yet.
Rules
A game of the Improper Fraction Arena does not have an upper limit to how many players can be in it, but each player must be independent. There are ten improper fractions added onto the game for each participant. The first participant to buzz in, if they correctly convert the improper fraction to a mixed fraction, do not get a strike, and everyone else gets a strike. If they incorrectly convert the improper fraction, they get two strikes, and one strike is removed from everyone else. Once a participant has accumulated three strikes, they are burnt to death. The last participant alive wins fifty million lemons for each other participant who was in the game.
