Scoreboard

The Top Chess Engine Championship saw Komodo calculate its way ahead of 23 other digital competitors to claim the title for the second series in a row. In the final round, facing Stockfish, another former champion, Komodo won eight games, Stockfish won two, and 90 were a draw.

Among humans, the Manhattan Applesauce defeated favorite team, the St. Louis Arch Bishops, to claim the 2015 United State Chess League Championship. The crucial win in that contest came on the fourth board when 12 year-old Akira Nakada defeated Nicholas Rosenthal.

Though he didn’t have an easy time of it, World Champion Magnus Carlsen won the London Chess Classic and therefore also the Grand Chess Tour.

A Chess game of a different sort took place in Lake Sartash in Russia. Yes, I do mean “in the lake“, which by the way, was frozen over at the time.

At the River Hill Fall event in Maryland, first Keaton Ellis beat the 3×3 Rubik’s Cube single-solve world record with a 5.09 second performance, then Lucas Etter topped that with a single-solve in 4.90 seconds.

Meanwhile, at the MPEI Open in Moscow, Roman Strakhov solved a 5×5 blindfolded in a world record 5 minutes, 4.81 seconds.

Zhao Jian of China won the World Series of Mahjong in Macau. His prize was HK$406,000 and a 24 karat gold Mahjong neclace.

The winner of the Magic: The Gathering 2015 World Cup was team Italy.