Brigitta Sinka of Hungary has broken the world record for total number of simultaneous Chess games played in a lifetime. The record was previously held by Cuban grandmaster Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-1942) and now stands at 13,600 (though by the time you read this, she’s probably played a few hundred more).

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen crashed on home turf, finishing in the bottom half of Norway Chess 2015 (also the first stop of the $1 million Grand Chess Tour). The winner was Vaselin Topalov, with former world champion Viswanathan Anand coming in second.

Bridge has been admitted to the 2018 Asian Games (to take place in Indonesia) by the Olympic Committee of Asia. Its bid (as well as that of Chess) for admission to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, however, was denied.

The winner of the World Crokinole Championship, Justin Slater, has been gunning for the position for 5 years, twice in that time coming in second.

A new world record has been set for solving a Rubik’s Cube with feet. Jakub Kipa did it in 20.57 seconds at the Radomsko Cube Theory in Poland.

The United Kingdom’s National Schools Top Trumps Tournament, sponsored by Winning Moves, started with 2,000 school-level tournaments, narrowed in an online round, and went to a live final. Coming out on top was William Gooch from Elloughton Primary School in Yorkshire.

Yu-Gi-Oh! events are divided in to two sections, one, Dragon Duels, for younger competitors (currently those born in 2002 or later), and one unrestricted. At the North American World Championship Qualifier event in Nashville, the winner in the open section was Noah Reid of Georgia; the winner in Dragon Duels was Austin Wesley Colling of Ohio. Both received similar prize packages included a trophy, complete sets of Secrets of Eternity and Crossed Souls boosters, an iPad, and expense-paid travel to the World Championship in Kyoto, Japan.

Indian Chess players performed well in recent tournaments. The world’s 25th ranked player Pendyala Harikrishna defeated defending champion Vassily Ivanchuk (ranked #27) in the final round  of the Edmonton International to claim the trophy. Abhijeet Gupta won the Commonwealth Chess Championship with a score of 8.0/9.

Nine year old Mhage Gerriahlou Sebastian of the Philippines qualified as Woman Candidate Master after winning gold and silver medals at the 16th ASEAN + Age Group Chess Championship.

A dedicated player who along with her late husband founded the Trinidad and Tobago Scrabble Association in 1985, Patricia John finally won the local Scrabble Masters Tournament herself and will be representing the country at the World English-Language Scrabble Players Association Championship, November in Perth, Australia.

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A High Court judge in the U.K. has declared that the card game, Bridge, may be considered a sport.

If the brain is a muscle, it [may satisfy the definition of sport]. You are doing more physical activity playing Bridge, with all that dealing and playing, than in rifle shooting… There are a number of physical activities, such as running on a treadmill in a gym, which are physical recreation but not sports.

The question of whether a card game should be considered a sport is the subject of a case initiated by the English Bridge Union against Sport England. The latter, a government agency responsible for disbursing lottery grants to non-professional sporting groups, had refused to recognize mind sports as “physical activity aimed a improving physical fitness and well being, forming social relations and gaining results in competition at all levels.”

The judge, however, disagreed, possibly enabling the English Bridge Union to obtain public funding for tournaments.

[via Daily Mail]

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In a trick-taking card game such as Bridge, the luck of the draw can have a significant impact on a player’s success. Thus, most tournaments are played in Duplicate Bridge format, where card hands are determined in advance and the same distribution is played at each table. Scoring, then, in Duplicate Bridge is based on performance relative to those playing with the same cards, rather than strictly on the number of tricks taken or games won.

But with four hands of 13 cards spread over potentially dozens of tables and multiple rounds, sorting cards in to duplicate hands can be a time-consuming chore. Thus were born machine card dealers. These are devices that will sort a deck of cards in to four preset hands. Typically, they interface with computer databases or shuffling programs and sort the cards in to standard boards (that is, plastic trays designed to hold and lock hands for North, East, South, and West players).

Among the machines available are:

• The Duplimate Mk. 4.5, which for $2,970 can deal a deck of bar-coded cards in 5 seconds.
• The PlayBridgeDealer4+ with built-in memory and touch-screen operating panel for $4,750.
• The $345 HandyDup, which scans bar-coded cards as they are dealt but requires the human hand to place them in the correct piles.

Of course, old-school paper kits are still available. But so are third-party software interfaces, which claim to provide truer random deals and better security.

Nor is the development of Bridge dealing technology finished. High-level professional Poker player, Gus Hansen, is said to be investing millions of dollars in “Bridge+Dealer“, a new dealing system that will also incorporate advanced analysis features for tabulating tournament results.

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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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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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