Scrabble

A world record was set for the greatest number of consecutive Scrabble games played in 24 hours. The record 30 games were played by World Champion Craig Beevers, who won the first 29 and lost the last.

Monopoly

The new Monopoly Canadian Champion is Andi Cameron of Ontario, who bested 47 other players May 1st & 2nd in Toronto. With the title came a $10,000 prize and a stake in the World Championship event to be held September in Macao.

Rubik’s Cube

Collin Burns not only won the Doylestown Spring, he also solved a standard 3×3 in a world record 5.25 seconds.

Other recent world records include:

• Haixin Yang solving the 3×3 one-handed in 8.27 seconds at the Chengdu Open.
• Oliver Frost solving a 5×5 blindfolded in 5 minutes, 35.84 seconds at the Welcome Back to Guildford.
• Jakub Kipa solving 3×3 with feet in an average 29.96 seconds at the Polish Open.

And then there was the guy who solved a Rubik’s Cube while spinning on his head:

Chess

The World Women’s Chess Championship began with a field of 64 players, narrowed to four for the semifinals, and finished with Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine besting Natalia Pogonina of Russia 2.5-1.5 in the finals. Mariya is the 15th Women’s World Chess Champion and took home a prize of $60,000.

For the fourth consecutive year, Webster University has won the President’s Cup, commonly known as the college final-four of Chess. The win also represents the fifth consecutive for coach Susan Polgar, who previously worked with Texas Tech.

Host country, China, won the World Team Chess Championship but came in third, following Georgia and Russia, in the women’s section.

At the Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir, Azerbaijan, a tough game with Viswanathan Anand started the tournament off shaky for world champion Magnus Carlsen. And yet he managed to pull out a draw and finish the rest of the event undefeated and the winner with 7.0/9 points.

Yochanan Afek has earned the rare honor of the grandmaster title for Chess composition. Chess composition is the development of Chess problems or puzzles. And within this realm, Mr. Afek specializes in endgame studies.

Twelve year-old Jonah Willow forced Grandmaster Alexander Cherniaev to a draw to pull third place at the Nottingham Chess Congress, thus also qualifying for the upcoming British Chess Championships.

Backgammon

Japanese players were the favorites at the 27th Nordic Open Backgammon Tournament in Copenhagen. Yet it was Dagfinn Snarheim of Norway who walked away with the trophy and 300,000 kroner prize.

Draughts

Allan Igor Moreno Silva of Brazil won his third consecutive Pan American Draughts Championship.

Subbuteo

The Grand Prix of Scotland was dominated by Greece, with Kostas Sesses topping 50 other players in the open section and Greece taking the trophy as well in the team competition.

In Malta an International Open one day was followed by a Grand Prix the next day. The former was won by Juan Noguera of Spain. At the latter, though, it was locals Samuel Bartolo in the lead for the individual competition and Valletta Subbuteo Club first among teams.

At the Open of Traiskirchen (Austria), Alexander Haas placed first in the open section and TFC Mattersburg first in the team section.

Magic: The Gathering

At the head of Grand Prix Atlantic City was Christian Calcano, Grand Prix Paris Amand Dosimont, Grand Prix Toronto Lucas Siow, and Grand Prix Sao Paulo Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa (his 17th time in a grand prix top 8).

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Chess

At the FW DeVerteuil Memorial tournament in Trinidad & Tobago, Winter Atwell was the winner on a score of 6.5. His prize was $1,500.

Hou Yifan of China claimed her second gold on the podium of the SportAccord World Mind Games with a win in women’s Basque. The winner of the men’s Basque event was Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.

A turn of fortunes in the final round of the World Youth U-16 Chess Olympiad saw India end up in first place, Russia in second place, and Iran in third.

Go

After earlier claiming gold medals in the men’s team and women’s individual competitions of the SportAccord World Mind Games, the Chinese completed their sweep with a gold medal finish in the pair event.

Draughts

At the World Youth Draughts Championship in Poland, Nurguyana Azarova of Russia claimed first place in the girls junior division, Vera Khvashchynskaya of Belarus in the girls juniors blitz division, Artur Tunkevic of Lithuania in boys juniors, and Martijn Van Ijzendoorn of the Netherlands in boys juniors blitz.

Jean Marc Ndjofang of Cameroon won the men’s super blitz event at the SportAccord World Mind Games. In second and third place were friends and fellow Dutch players, Pieter Meurs and Roel Boomstra.

At the World Blitz Championship in Hilversum, Netherlands, the top player was Alexander Georgiev of Russia.

Backgammon

Akiko Abe Yazawa of Japan won the American Backgammon Tour Las Vegas Open.

Odis Chenault won the California State Backgammon Championship.

And Mehmet Akis won the Cyprus Backgammon Open.

Bridge

The individual champion at the SportAccord World Mind Games was Geir Helgemo of Monaco.

Rubik’s Cube

At the Red Cross Cubing Open, Collin Burns set a North American record by solving the 3×3 in 5.93 seconds.

Xiangqi

The Toronto pair of Zheng XiMing and Mark Wang WeiQiang won the team competition of the North American Cup, while the trophy in the individual competition went to Michael Hu of New Jersey.

The SportAccord World Mind Games saw gold medals go to Hoang Yen Nguyen of Vietnam among the women and Chuan Jiang of China among the men.

Subbuteo

The local Olympia team came out on top of the International Open in Athens. In the individual section, Spyros Hantzaras was the winner.

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Magic: The Gathering

Shahar Shenhar won the World Championship and is the first person ever to do so twice. The championship trophy comes with a $50,000 prize. In the World Magic Cup team competition, held together with the Championship in Nice, France, it was Denmark that came out on top.

In order to accommodate players impacted by a transit strike, a special tournament structure was arranged for Grand Prix Milan. Still, 1,760 players made it. And the winner was Magnus Lantto of Sweden. Magnus is a regular Magic Online player but this was his first time winning a live title.

On the same weekend, Gerard Fabiano was the winner of Grand Prix Baltimore.

Chess

At the Russian Championship in Kazan, Tatarstan, 10-player round-robin tournaments were won by Igor Lysyj and Valentina Gunina, men’s and women’s sections, respectively.

Anquandah Francis Eric of Ghana was the winner in the general section of the Africa Zone 4.4 Chess Championship. His performance at the tournament also qualified him for the title of International Master. In the women’s section, the winner was Rabiu Olabisi of Nigeria.

A strong field at the Qatar Masters Open was dominated by Yu Yangyi of China, whose 7.5/9 score put him ½ point in front and $25,000 richer.

Demonstrating that he’s still a strong competitor, former World Champion Viswanathan Anand finished first at the London Chess Classic, beating out Vladimir Kramnik and Anish Giri on tiebreak.

Junior, Senior, and Amateur Championships were held recently under the auspices of the Asian Chess Federation. At the Junior event, Narayanan Srinath of India took the general section trophy for the third year in a row, while Mikee Charlene Suede earned the first such title for the Philippines in the women’s section. Among the Seniors, Baimurzin Aitkazy of Kazakhstan won with a score of 8.5/9, including no losses and only one tie. Though representatives of ten countries participated, it was local player Buddhika Amarasinghe of Sri Lanka that won the Amateur Championship.

Back in the Philippines, it was Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia who came in first place at the Philippine International Chess Championship.

Dev Shah of India won the under-7 category while qualifying as Candidate Master at the World Schools Chess Championships in Juiz de Fora, Brazil.

Two familiar names topped the leader-boards at the SportAccord World Mind Games blitz tournament, Alexander Grischuk of Russia for the men and Hou Yifan of China for the women. Grischuk also claimed gold in men’s rapid. Yifan, however, fell to Valentina Gunina of Russia in women’s rapid.

Shogi

Tetsuro Itodani, the 26 year-old winner of the 27th Ryuo Shogi title, is confident that his performance will continue to improve for another 10 years.

Bridge

The team competition has concluded at the SportAccord World Mind Games. Israel took gold in open teams and England gold in women’s.

Draughts

The gold medal at the SportAccord World Mind Games women’s rapid tournament went to Tamara Tansykkuzhina of Russia, while gold for men went to Roel Boomstra of The Netherlands. Blitz men’s gold was claimed by Alexander Shvartsman of Russia, while in the gold podium position for women was Darya Tkachenko of Ukraine.

The winner of the US Open was Miguel Almanzar of the Dominican Republic.

Go

The Chinese team has started strong at the SportAccord World Mind Games, taking gold in both the men’s team and women’s individual competitions. At the top of the podium for women’s individual was Yu Zhiying.

Backgammon

Jonah Seewald won the 2014 US Backgammon Federation Grand Championship.

Subbuteo

The Merlion Cup in Singapore was an international affair. Ouabi Rouis of France took home the trophy.

Similar international representation at the Yokohama Open also resulted in a French win, this time by Cédric Garnier.

At the FISTF Open of Milano, Portuguese player Vasco Guimaraes defeated World Champion Juan Noguera in the final game 2-1.

Rubik’s Cube

Marcin Kowalczyk set a new world record for single solve of the 3×3 blindfolded, finishing in 21.17 seconds.

A world record single Skewb solve was set by Jonatan Kłosko 1.81 seconds.

And in Niddrie, Australia, three world records were set, Feliks Zemdegs with the 5×5 at an average 54.20 seconds, Feliks agains with the 3×3 one-handed at an average 11.72 seconds, and Jayden McNeill with Skewb at an average 3.10 seconds.

Dominoes

A world record 50,000 domino circle bomb was pulled off in Germany:

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Chess

In Bilbao, Spain, Viswanathan Anand led the Chess Masters Final and team SOCAR of Azerbaijan the European Chess Club Cup.

Bartlomiej Macieja, Chess coach at the University of Texas at Brownsville, won the United States Masters Championship at the head of a field of 19 grandmasters.

Xiangqi

Mark Wang WeiQiang won the Toronto Open Championship for the fourth year in a row, the first person ever to achieve that record.

Go

At the 9th Korea Prime Minister Cup International Amateur Baduk Championship in Seoul, Wei Taewoong of Korea took home the first place trophy after defeating a fellow student of the Choongam Baduk Academy in the final round.

Backgammon

The winner of the U.S. Backgammon Federation’s Masters Divisional II tournament was Ted Chee.

At the UK Backgammon Open, the winner was an American, Jason Pack, who scored 13-5 over Martin Birkhahn of Germany in the final round.

Other

German Manuel Ramirez Piňa drafted to first place at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series in Lima, Peru.

To show off its tournament management system, Oomba sponsored a world-record Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament at Gen Con—2,950 participants, certified by Guinness.

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The U.S. Backgammon Federation is adopting a legal moves rule. The idea of a legal moves rule is that if a person notices an illegal play by an opponent, the person should point it out and the opponent should correct it before the game continues.

Currently, the organization’s rules state:

A turn is completed when the player picks up his dice. If the play is incomplete or otherwise illegal, the opponent has the option of accepting the play as made or of requiring the player to make a legal play. A play is deemed to have been accepted as made when the opponent rolls his dice or offers a double to start his own turn.

The Federation’s Board of Directors, which endorsed a legal moves rule in principle, stated that the change would make in-person and online play more consistent, align the organization with other national Backgammon federations, and foster enjoyment by recreational players.

But I’m curious. How do you play in your games (Backgammon or otherwise)? Do you correct your opponents or is taking advantage of mistakes considered fair?

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Chess

At the Asean Para Games in Myanmar, 72 medals were handed out in Chess. Indonesia took the largest number with 10 gold, 7 silver, and 4 bronze. In the men’s physical disability section, Philippines Roger Lopez and Sander Severino traded golds and silvers. Lopez won gold in the rapid games, where Severino took silver. In the standard match-up, it was Severino who claimed the gold and Lopez the silver.

Abhijeet Gupta triumphed at the Parsvnath Delhi International Grandmasters Chess Tournament with a 6-4 score of 8 points, ahead of five challengers at 7.5.

Bryan Smith of Pennsylvania and Elmir Huseynov of D.C. tied for first place at the Eastern Open in Bethesda, Maryland. In third place was Mikheil Kekelidze of New York, who’s two losses both followed sacrificing a white knight on g6.

Backgammon

Matt Reklaitis of Massachusetts won the New York Metropolitan Backgammon Open.

Scrabble

Taking home the trophy and ₹2,85,000 prize from the iGate International Scrabble Tournament was none other than Nigel Richards, whose record in the event was 29-6 +1891.

Magic: The Gathering

At Grand Prix Prague, unranked Vjeran Horvat of Croatia took advantage of the Modern format to win with a red-white-blue deck.

Tom Martell, Pro Tour Gatecrash champion, claimed first place at the Theros Limited format Grand Prix Sacramento with a black-white deck.

Rubik’s Cube

At Frankfurt Cube Days, Sebastian Weyer placed first in standard 3×3 with a national record (6.4 seconds best) and 4×4 with a world record (28.15 seconds average).

Several Asian regional records fell at Guangzhou Small Cubes, where Kailong Lee came in first at 3×3 standard with an 9.36 second average.

Three new single-best-time world records were set at the Lifestyle Seasons Summer in Melbourne, Australia. Feliks Zemdegs solved 4×4 in 24.66 seconds and 3×3 one-handed in 9.09 seconds. Jayden McNeill solved Skewb in 4.27 seconds.

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World Mind Games

The SportAccord World Mind Games took place December 12-18 in Beijing and included tournaments for Bridge, Chess, Draughts, Go, and Xiangqi. China led the field with 9 gold medals and 21 overall, followed by Russia with 6 gold and 14 total, and Monaco with 2 gold and 3 total.

Pairs open Bridge was won by Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes of Monaco, while pairs women fell to Chinese players Xuefeng Feng and Yu Zhang.

In Chess, Sergey Karjakin of Russia and Levon Aronian of Armenia were tied for men’s blitz at 19.5 after 30 games. Karjakin, though, scored 1.5-1 in the direct face-off, claiming the gold medal and leaving Aronian with silver.  Wang Yue of China was the surprise winner of the men’s rapid event. In the women’s blitz tournament, the two leading contenders, Hou Yifan of China and Valentina Gunina of Russia, drew each other as opponents for the last round. The game was well-fought but, in the end, Hou left with the gold. Don’t feel bad for Gunina, though. In the women’s rapid tournament, the positions were reversed—Gunina took gold and Hou silver.

Also part of the Chess competition at the World Mind Games were so-called Basque events, in which opposing players face each other in two simultaneous games. The top three players in women’s Basque were all from China but the ultimate winner was Zhao Xue. On top for the men was Sergey Karjakin.

Joel N’Cho Atse of Ivory Coast stunned 10-time world champion, Alexei Chizhov of Russia, to claim victory in men’s blitz Draughts. The women’s winner was Matrena Nogovitcyna.

Sixteen-year-old Zhiying Yu of China won gold in the women’s individual Go event. There was no men’s individual event but there was a men’s team and a mixed pairs. The winners of the men’s team competition were Hanseung Cho, Jiseok Kim, and Jeonghwan Park of Korea. And the pairs winners were Chenxing Wang and Ruiyang Zhou of China.

Xiangqi gold medals both went to players from China, Tianyi Wang in the men’s division and Dan Tang in the women’s division.

Chess

Samvel Ter-Sahakyan of Armenia claimed victory at the SREI International Grandmaster Chess Tournament in Kolkata, India but just barely. He was one of five tied for first but just edged out the others on tie-breaker points.

In a two-game rapid Chess final round of the London Chess Classic, the world’s 4th ranked player, Hikaru Nakamura of the U.S.A., beat the world’s 8th ranked, Boris Gelfand of Israel, 1½-½.

FIDE has made an official announcement regarding invitations for the next Candidates Tournament, to be held March 11-April 1, 2014 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia:

1. Viswanathan Anand (IND, former world champion)
2. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS, world cup 2013 winner)
3. Dmitry Andreikin (RUS, world cup 2013 finalist)
4. Veselin Topalov (BUL, grand-prix 2012-13 winner)
5. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE, grand-prix 2012-13 runner-up)
6. Levon Aronian (ARM, rating list 2012-13)
7. Sergey Karjakin (RUS, rating list 2012-13)
8. Peter Svidler (RUS, host nominee)

First reserve from the FIDE Grand-Prix standings is Fabiano Caruana (ITA).

Nubairshah Shaikh won the Nirmala Vaze Memorial All India Open FIDE Rating Rapid Chess Trophy for a Rs 15,000 prize.

Scrabble

Pakistani players dominated the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Dubai with six out of the top 20 finishers, including first and second. The champion position was claimed by 16 year-old Moizullah Baig with a record of 19-4-1 +1448. The runner-up was Javeria Mirza with a record of 18-6 +1725.

Backgammon

At the Sunshine State Backgammon Championship in Tampa, Florida the winner was Jeff Burdsall of Nevada.

With the US Backgammon Federation’s Club Team Championship opened to international competition for the first time, one Russian team participated. However, it was a team from the Washington, D.C. area that captured the trophy.

Draughts

The 8th World Championship Blitz Draughts tournament was held in Den Helder, Netherlands, where Alexander Schwarzman was declared the winner.

Other

At the Rubik’s Cube Philippine Open, Mharr Justhinne Ampong won at standard 3×3 with an average of 11.67 seconds, while Marvin Llaneta won at 3×3 with feet with an average of 1 minute, 10.14 seconds.

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Chess

Azerbaijan led the European Team Chess Championship in Warsaw with an undefeated record. France claimed second place, defeating Russia in tiebreakers. First place in the women’s sections was Ukraine, while Russia placed second after edging out Poland in tiebreakers.

At the World Team Chess Championship, Russia, however, was the overall winner, followed by China, Ukraine, and the United States.

Calvin Prasad won the Fiji National Chess Championship.

Scrabble

For Scrabble, it almost just makes sense to report the second-place winners. But anyway… the winner of the Scrabble Champions Tournament at the Prague Mind Sports Festival was, of course, Nigel Richards of New Zealand. His record in the main event was 22-9 +1498, in the semifinals 3-0, and in the finals 3-2. Coming in second was Komol Panyasophonlert of Thailand, who’s main event record was 21-10 +1215. In the final game between the two, three of the first five moves were bingos! Nigel took home a prize of $10,000 and Komol $5,000.

In the Open Division in Prague, the winner was Jesse Matthews of Canada.

Jack Durand, 13, of London, won the UK National Youth Scrabble Championship.

Underdog, Umang Kejriwal, 15, won the Delhi State Scrabble Championship in five undefeated matches.

Go

Mi Yuting of China—only 17 years old—won the 1st MLily Meng Baihe Cup World Go Open Tournament and a prize of ¥ 1,800,000 ($300,000). In the best-of-five final match he lost the first game but won the next three.

Magic: The Gathering

Ari Lax of Boston won Grand Prix Toronto with some unusual cards.

Marlon Gutierrez of Mexico City faced some of the highest ranked players in the game for his final-8 matches, yet triumphed to win Grand Prix Dallas-Fort Worth.

Backgammon

At the California State Backgammon Championship, the victor in the Open Division was Ray Fogerlund and in the Advanced Division was Anayat Raminfar.

Other

It took him 20 minutes but Istvan Kocza solved a 5×5 Rubik’s cube blindfolded at the Hungarian Rubik’s Cube Open. At the same event, Hunor Bozsing ranked first with the standard 3×3 challenge. The 3×3 winner at the Italian Rubik’s Cube Open was Paolo Moriello. At the New Zealand Nationals it was Angelu Cayanan. And at the GuateMaya Open, the winner was Adrian Ramirez, who set a new national record with an average of 16.44 seconds.

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From designer Anya Hindmarch, the Duke Backgammon Clutch (£995) and the Duchess Domino Clutch (£1,195):

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An rare Anglo-Saxon game piece from the 7th century has been unearthed by University of Reading archaeologists. The piece is made from a cylinder of bone and has lathe-turned end-caps secured with a bronze rivet.

Other game components from this period have been found before, but none since the late 1800s. Also, this is the first time that a game piece was found where the games were played—in this case, a royal hall—whereas before, they were always found in burial sites.

The team that discovered the piece was unable to determine the exact nature of the game in which it was used. However, it is known that the Anglo-Saxons played games similar to Backgammon and Draughts.

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