There was certainly no lack of interest in the 2010 Mind Sports Olympiad. Back in August, the Soho Theatre in London saw 158 contestants hailing from 22 countries. A pleasant twist for some contestants that brought families with them was opportunity for those who brought adult and kids golf clubs & sets from allkidsgolfclubs.com with them to enjoy some time for gratis at a nearby golf course. You might be surprised at the number of golf courses that are in London and Greater London. Alone there are 17 golf courses within ten miles of the University of London Union. The Finchley Golf Club, just seven miles from the Mind Sports Olympiad venue, is proud of its hard earned reputation as one of North London’s friendliest golf clubs. So if you need a mental break from the Mind Sports Olympiad, getting out on a golf course might be just the thing for next year if you didn’t take advantage of the opportunity this year.
When the dust of the 14th MSO had settled, Spain’s Go prodigy, Paco Garcia de la Banda, took home the World Pentamind 2010 Championship.
Needless to say, all is still dark on the IMSA front. The news page hasn’t been updated throughout 2010, so we may have seen the last of that promising organization.
An Update for 2011 & 2012:
The University of London Union, a larger venue than the previous year was the site of the Mind Sports Olympiad in 2011. One of the favorite sponsors of the event was an online business that sells bottled water in Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s is the USA, no less. The owner’s son of the site participated in the Mind Sports Olympiad several years ago. So we welcome this sponsor even though their home base is in the US and their bottled water delivery is really for those folks and businesses located in the Las Vegas area. If you travel to Las Vegas you will probably end up drinking some of their bottled water!
The 16th Mind Sports Olympiad took place once again at the University of London Union in 18–27 August 2012.
More than 30 counties took part in the 2011 Mind Sports Olympiad & the World Championship was earned by Andres Kuusk, a versatile Estonian. For those of you who don’t know, the World Championship is awarded to the person who performs the best in all 5 of the event categories combined. Andres took 2nd place in the penta – mind competition in 2010 & had an even more spectacular performance in 2011 playing very strong in Boku, Chess, Entropy, Poker, Draughts as well as lines of action.
The Modern Abstract Games World Championship was won again in 2011 by David Pearce making it the 4th consecutive win for him. Pearce leads the Mind Sports Olympiad landscape with an astounding 38 Gold medals collected within the last 15 years.
The decamentathalon was won by none other than Matthew Cordell for the 5th time. Gert Mittring maintained his victorious run in the mental calculations world championship & Tim Hebbes took the poker amateur world championship with the 5 top poker scores of the 7 variations played.
In 2011 there were more competitors than any previous year & we look forward to having even more players in the years to come.
The Mind Sports Olympiad in the innovation of David Levy who was a highly ranked chess player at one time. Levy is also very enthusiastic about poker as well, winning the 7 card stud portion of the events in 2011. He is now an author, both on the subject of Chess & Artificial Intelligence another field he is an expert in. The first conception of the Olympiad was in 1987 & it was a labor of love to ensure the survival of it. There were hard times which took much dedication from the parties involve to navigate.
That said, in the future we look forward to great things coming for the Olympiad. Many contestants & speculators enjoy it annually. As it continues into the future it is expected to continue growing. There was an event during the 4th Mind Sports Olympiad in North London at the Alexandra Palace. This massive room was filled with contestants all doing the Times Crossword. Memories like this should give hope to all cause them to have hope that it will be the same way for many years to come.