Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresA group of senior high school students at the American British Academy in Muscat set a new record for computer processor built from dominoes. With 15,000 dominoes, they constructed a 5-bit adder that can sum numbers up to 63. [For a fascinating explanation of how this works, I suggest this video from the person who built the 4-bit adder.]

Keisuke Fukuchi of Japan took home the trophy at the World Othello Championship held in Prague, Czech Republic. At 11 years of age, he’s the youngest champion ever in the tournament’s 42 year history. On his flight home via All Nippon Airways, a congratulations was announced by the pilot, Kunihiko Tanida, the previous record holder for youngest Othello champion (which he had held since 1982).

The World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis reclaimed the record for the world’s largest Chess piece. It previously held the record with a 14 foot tall king from 2012 to 2014 but was then eclipsed by a school in the town of Kalmthout, Belgium. The new record-making piece is a 20 foot tall black Staunton king with a base of 9 feet 2 inches and a weight of 10,860 pounds. It was hand carved from African Sapele Mahogany.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway successfully defended his World Chess Champion title against Fabiano Caruana of the United States by intentionally playing for a draw in standard time controls and then winning three straight in rapid tie-breaks. At the World Rapid Chess Championship, though, Carlsen tied with three others for second place. The winner in that event was Daniil Dubov of Russia. Following that was the World Blitz Chess Championship, where Carlsen again came out on top.

With a win at the London Chess Classic, Hikaru Nakamura of the United States secured first place in the multi-tournament Grand Chess Tour series.

Among artificial entities, Chess engine Stockfish won both Rapid and Blitz categories of the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship. Houdini came in second in Rapid, where the final match took place over 200 games, and Komodo came in second in Blitz, where the final was 300 games.

Nigel Richards won his fourth World Scrabble Championship with a final game score of 575-452, that achieved with such words as “groutier” (68 points), “zonular” (100 points), and “phenolic” (84 points). His opponent managed “maledict” for 95 points.

A new edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary makes legal play out of “sheeple”, “ew”, “OK”, “yowza”, and “zomboid”. It also adds another q-without-a-u word, “qapik”, a monetary unit from Azerbaijan.

Javier Dominguez of Spain, who last year finished in second place, managed a win in this year’s finals, taking home $100,000 and the trophy for Magic: The Gathering World Champion.

Akiko Yazawa of Japan, cancer survivor, won her second World Backgammon Championship title.

Topping a field of 76 contestants from 46 countries, Quetzal Hernandez of Mexico won the Catan World Championship in Cologne, Germany.

Elena Short of Ukraine finished first in both the women’s classic and women’s blitz sections of the World Championship in Draughts 64.

Wu Yiming, 11 years old, of China became the country’s youngest female professional Go player.

In late December 2017, thirteen year-old Que Jianyu appeared on Chinese television and solved three Rubik’s Cubes while continuously juggling them, and did so in a world record 5 minutes 6.61 seconds. Then in December of this year, he went on Italian television and broke his own record by just over 4 seconds. Between these two events, he also broke speed records for solving three Rubik’s Cubes simultaneously with hands and feet (1 minutes 36.39 seconds) and solving a single Rubik’s cube while hanging upside down (15.84 seconds).

At the Cube for Cambodia event in Melbourne, Australia, Feliks Zemdegs solved a 3×3 Rubik’s Cube in a world record 4.22 seconds.

Max Park of the United States set four new Rubik’s Cube world records. He solved:

Several new world records were set for solving Rubik’s Cubes while blindfolded. At the end of the year, the records stand as follows:

  • 16.55 seconds for 3×3 blindfolded, set by Max Hilliard at the Puget Sound NxNxN in Tacoma, Washington.
  • 1 minute 26.41 seconds for 4×4 blindfolded set by Kaijun Lin at the Please Be Quiet Beijing in Beijing, China.
  • 3 minutes 1.01 seconds for 5×5 blindfolded set by Stanley Chapel‎ at the Shaker Fall in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Grégoire Pfennig of Belfort, France built the largest order working Rubik’s Cube puzzle, 33×33. Imagine how long it would take to solve that!

A group of four in Moscow set a world record for the number of escape rooms attended in 1 day, 22.

At the World Rummikub Championship in Jerusalem, Kohei Numajiri of Japan came in first place, Sasha Erlich of Israel came in second, and Matthijs Delvers of Netherlands third.

Ankush Khandelwal of the U.K. won the Pentamind World Championship, a tournament that consists of matches in Quoridor, 7 Wonders, Acquire, Liar’s Dice, and Chess 960.

Brain Games held its first ICECOOL World Championship event at BaltiCon in Riga, Latvia, where Khanh Hung Dong of Canada took home the trophy and a prize of a weekend for two at Snow Village in Lapland.

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Imagine that your favorite board game made you sick. I mean, convulsing on the floor, eyes rolling back, foaming at the mouth sick! That’s what recently happened to a 52 year old Chinese man while playing Mahjong. Still, who would have imagined a tabletop game causing seizures. But after a second incident mid-game, doctors with the Zhejiang University School of Medicine diagnosed Mahjong epilepsy.

Mahjong epilepsy is a rare reflex epilepsy syndrome, a type of condition in which seizures can be brought on by certain stimuli, such as flashing lights. Mahjong epilepsy most closely resembles a cognition epilepsy subtype, in which seizures are induced by decision-making, spacial tasks, and other thought processes. There have been cases of seizures induced by writing, drawing, and performing mathematical calculations.

In a 2007 study of 23 cases, doctors in Hong Kong, however, found Mahjong epilepsy sufficiently distinctive, noted that both playing and just watching Mahjong could lead to seizures, and ruled out stress or sleep deprivation as the cause. In the recent Chinese case, the man’s doctor hypothesized that a possible trigger could have been the patterns of circles and dots found on Mahjong tiles.

Other cases of game-induced seizures have been confirmed by medical professionals. A 1965 article in the Chinese Medical Journal documented four patients with repeated epileptic seizures playing and watching games of Chess and cards. Among these cases, the sufferers would find themselves uncontrollably gesturing with their arms, standing and spinning, and losing consciousness.

Case studies in the journal Epilepsia report on an Italian man who over a period of years suffered “arrests of thought” when playing cards or Draughts, three Asian patients for whom cards and Draughts induced tonic-clonic seizures, and an American woman who experienced generalized seizures when playing Checkers.

See also the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry for a report on a patient who’s jerking motions and loss of consciousness were evoked by attempts to solve a Rubik’s CubeNeurology for a study of 25 cases involving “activation of seizures by calculation, card, and board games“; and the Journal of Clinical Neurology (Korea) for information on 13 patients who experienced seizures while playing the card game Go-Stop and four patients who’s seizures were triggered by playing Baduk (Go).

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresThe Google-sponsored AlphaGo computer program, which had previously defeated world Go champion Lee Sedol, racked up 59 wins playing anonymously online against a variety of masters.

Sergey Karjakin, who had lost the recent World Chess Championship to Magnus Carlsen in tiebreak games, managed to best his rival on tiebreak criteria to claim the top position in the World Blitz Championship. At the same tournament, Vassily Ivanchuk won the World Rapid Championship, while Anna Muzychuk won both rapid and blitz titles in the women’s section.

Wesley So won the London Chess Classic, putting him at the top of the four-stop Grand Chess Tour. His total prize winnings on the Tour: $295,000.

University students in Wageningen, Netherlands created the world’s largest Monopoly board, along with dice and houses all to-scale. Made with the support of Hasbro and certified by Guiness World Records, the board measured 900.228 m² (9,689.97 ft²). The previous record, set in the United States earlier this year, was 744.867 m² (8,017.69 ft²).

It was two Dutchmen who faced off in the World Draughts Championship. Roel Boomstra came away the winner.

In December, Feliks Zemdegs solved a 6×6 Rubik’s Cube in a world record 1 minute, 32.47 seconds. Then in January, he beat his own record with a 1 minute, 27.85 second solve.

Here’s a machine solving a standard 3×3 Rubik’s Cube in 0.637 seconds:

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresNeil Scallon of the U.K. claims a world-record collection 2,500 copies of Monopoly but also says he hasn’t played a board game in 20 years.

Sota Fujii, a 14 year-old middle school student from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, has achieved 4th dan status, breaking the record for youngest professional Shogi player ever.

Brett Smitheram of the U.K. took home the trophy, a €7,000 grand prize, and a kiss to the feet at the World Scrabble Championship in Lille, France. His win was secured with 176 points from the play of “braconid” (a species of wasp) for a bingo on a triple word score.

Londoners commemorated the Great Fire of London with the toppling of 23,000 dominoes strung through 4 miles of city streets, markets, pubs, gardens, and a church.

With a win at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis (and its $75,000 prize), Wesley So of the United States is nearly assured of also taking the top prize for the entire Grand Chess Tour. That is, unless maybe Magnus Carlsen decides to step back in for the London Chess Classic in December after finishing the World Chess Championship.

The winner of the 40th World Chess Solving Championship (a tournament of solving Chess puzzles) held in Belgrade, Serbia was Zaur Mammadov of Azerbaijan. The second place winner was also from Azerbaijan.

Draughts also finished a World Championship of Problems recently, with Alexander Moiseyev of the United States in first place.

The winner of the 2016 Magic: The Gathering World Championship, Brian Braun-Duin of Virginia, was described by WOTC as having taken the “everyman’s journey to the top.” “Grinding” through tournament tours, he had set himself a goal of Grand Prix Master for this season but managed to trump that, going home with the big trophy.

At the 2016 World Championship Domino Tournament hosted by the Andalusia (Alabama) Rotary Club, the winner, Jerry Baker, was from nearby Ozark, Alabama. In fact, all the winners were from the Southeast United States.

A world record for the largest circle field of dominoes (76,017 toppled) was set in Westland, Michigan, along with the U.S. record for total dominoes toppled (242,518). A team of 18 spent 10 days setting up the feat.

Three retirees from China finishing on top of the 11th Austrian Mahjong Open was seen as something of a comeback after an embarrassing showing at the Open Mahjong Championship 2 years ago in France, where the highest placed competitor from China came in 30th.

It was an Austrian, Wolfgang Leitner, who won the 2016 FISTF World Cup in Belgium, where 500 competitors gathered to play table football (Subbuteo).

In first place at the 41st Backgammon World Championship was Jörgen Granstedt of Sweden.

At the European Rubik’s Cube Championship, Feliks Zemdegs of Australia set seven world records, including one for solving a 7×7 in 2 minutes, 20.66 seconds. At the PSU Open, August 28th in Novopolotsk, Belarus, Roman Strakhov of Russia set a world record by solving a 5×5 Rubik’s Cube, blindfolded in 5 minutes, 1.40 seconds. Just a few days later, however, at the SPB Championship, September 4th in St. Petersburg, Roman bested himself by finishing the 5×5 blindfolded in just 4 minutes, 55.63 seconds.

And the winner of the Pentamind World Championship was Andres Kuusk—his fourth time! The Pentamind is a meta-event, incorporating multiple games of one Chess variant, Scrabble, Go, Poker, and Backgammon.

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresThe first world champion for the latest incarnation of the DragonBall Z TCG is Timoth Batow of Florida. Mr. Batow first dreamed of the title 16 years ago but moved on to competitive Poker while the game was without a publisher 2006-2014.

Alexander Georgiev broke the world record for simultaneous games of Draughts. In Alemere, Netherlands he took on 45 opponents, winning 24 games, drawing 20, and losing just one over 4 hours, 35 minutes.

When World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen took part in a recent open tournament, the move was not only seen as unusual but also immediately questioned when he drew in the first round against a much lower ranked player. Further games, though, saw him back in good form and after besting Yu Yangyi of China 2-0 in the speed tie-break, Carlsen was able to claim first prize at the Qatar Open.

Marcel Peters’ 19 moves to solve a standard 3×3 Rubik’s Cube at Cubelonia 2016 in Cologne, Germany was a world record for fewest moves.

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresHikaru Nakamura managed to pull off a fantastic come-from-behind victory at the Millionaire Chess tournament in Las Vegas. First, one of his games was almost disqualified based on tournament rules that prohibited a draw before move 30. However, he and opponent Luke McShane were able to convince organizer Maurice Ashley to let the nine-move draw stand based on three-time repetition (a standard draw condition under FIDE rules). This tied Nakamura up at 5.5/7 with nine other players, all of whom were placed in a rapid playoff. After a win there he went on to join the final-four with three players who had advanced on scores of 6/7. Despite playing with a cold, he triumphed there as well and claimed the $100,000 top prize.

Maximilian Lu, age 9, of Connecticut became the youngest player in the history of the U.S. Chess Federation to earn the title of Master.

Thirteen-year-old Sota Fujii has become the youngest ever 3-dan Shogi player and may become the youngest ever professional player if he can achieve 4-dan in the next year and five months.

Meanwhile, engineers in Japan announced that their robotic Shogi player (it calculates the optimum play and moves the pieces) achieved a 63 percent winning record against professional players in 2014.

The EuropeMasters board game championships saw team Brettspielteam Hamburg of Germany take home the top trophy in a tournament made up of Deus, ZhanGuo, Orleans, and Five Tribes.

Magnus Carlsen won the 2015 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship but let out an uncharacteristic expletive upon losing his fourth game in the World Blitz Championship. That contest was won for the third time by Alexander Grischuk.

World Championship Rapid Blitz and Turkish DraughtsThe World Championship for Rapid, Blitz, and Turkish Draughts in Didim, Turkey was followed just a few days later by the World Cup and Bacoli Open in Italy. In the men’s section of the World Championship, Alexander Schwarzman placed first in Blitz and second in Rapid. Olga Balthazy led the women’s Blitz tournament undefeated, as did Faik Yildiz in the Turkish event. Guntis Valneris stole the show at the World Cup tournament, taking an early lead and leaving other players battling for second.

Tim Wong solved a Rubik’s Cube in just 19 moves for a world record.

Along his way to claiming the China Rubik’s Cube Championship, Feliks Zemdegs cleared four world records:  a single solve of the 4×4 cube in 21.54 seconds, a single solver of the 5×5 cube in 47.25 seconds, and the 5×5 cube solved in an average of 50.23 seconds. At the same event, Kaijun Lin broke the world record for solving a 3×3 blindfolded, doing it in 21.05 seconds.

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresSeth Manfield is the latest Magic: The Gathering World Champion. His record at the 2015 Championship was an incredible 15-1. First place in the tournament came with a $50,000 prize.

At the French Draughts Championship, Arnaud Cordier drew just three games and lost none, even with playing high-risk strategies. The performance put him in first place with 19 points, a full 6 points ahead three players tied for second.

Though the 2015 Magic: The Gathering Legacy Championship had great potential for some pretty high-powered card-play, Bob Huang won with a series of 1/1 red elemental tokens.

The real story from the 14th World Xiangqi Championship in Munich, Germany is not that players from China placed first in three out of four sections. In fact, the only section in which they did not is a specifically “Non-China/Vietnam Individual” section (where Shoshi Kazubaru of Japan took the lead). The real story is how well players from other countries performed, for example, Dan Jia of the United States second in the women’s individual and Xue Handi of Germany fourth in the men’s individual.

At the Polish Women’s Draughts Championship, Vice-World Champion Natalia Sadowska outlasted her main challenger to finish in first place, while at the Burkina Faso Draughts Championship, Adama Kone claimed the trophy with an impressive 17 points in 9 games (that’s 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie).

Zach Walker again took the title of Champion at the American Subbuteo Association National, an event that counted as both a World Amateur Subbuteo Players Asssociation regional and a Federation International of Sports Table Football open tournament.

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresMatthew Tunnicliffe of Ottawa is the 2015 North American Scrabble Champion. He won that title, as well as a trophy and $10,000 cash prize, by defeating runner up Jesse Day 495-344, using words such as “huipil”, “bighead”, “nonelite”, “leucomas”, and “kiva” (only one of which passed my spell checker).

At the Rubik’s Cube U.S. Nationals 2015, the winner of the 3×3 was Drew Brads with an 8.33 second average. His achievement earned him a $1,000 prize. Keaton Ellis came in first place in the 3×3 one-handed competition at a 13.75 second average. Jakup Kipa of Poland solved the 3×3 with his feet in an average of 28.56 seconds.

The winner of the 40th World Backgammon Championship in Monte Carlo was Cihangir Çetinel of Turkey. Among his prizes was a Geoffrey Parker Backgammon board.

Arlington, Virginia was a hot-zone of Chess as the World Open followed just 4 days after the D.C. International Tournament. Both saw multi-player ties for first place (four at D.C. International and eight at the World Open) but the common element in the two groups was GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran.

The African Team Draughts Championship saw a semi-final match replayed after an appeal, allowing Senegal to reverse its loss to Ivory Coast. Nevertheless, the team came up short in the finals, where Cameroon finished ahead.

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresNigel Richards claimed the trophy at the French Scrabble Championship, in French, which he doesn’t speak. But c’mon, it was Nigel Richards, for whom coming out on top of any Scrabble tournament in which he plays is a pretty safe bet. And in fact, it’s not uncommon for dedicated Scrabble players to compete in foreign language games. In many non-English-speaking countries, English Scrabble is still the predominant version played.

In another no-surprise win, Feliks Zemdegs took the Rubik’s Cube World Championship in Sao Paolo, Brazil. He also set a world record there for the 7×7 cube, solving it in 2 minutes, 23.55 seconds.

An average of 25 moves to complete the 3×3 Rubik’s Cube qualified Sébastien Auroux for a world record at the N8W8 Summer 2015.

Students in Michigan broke the U.S. record for toppling dominoes. Whether the same setup also broke a Rube Goldberg machine record remains in doubt because of several malfunctions. However, further investigation in to how backup devices functioned may yet deliver a record.

A Turkish diving instructor spent a world-record 72 hours under water. One of the ways in which he occupied himself was playing Backgammon.

After a three-way tie at the Nijmegen Draughts Open, Alexander Bulatov won on tie-breakers. Despite that, second place Anton Kosior took home more prize money, having also received awards for rating points, team competition, and rating group.

Shuhei Nakamura won Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Dallas/Fort Worth without losing a single game in the top 8.

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Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresRubik’s Cube

At the Indiana 2015, Kevin Hays solved a 6×6 cube in a world record 1 minute, 33.55 seconds.

Rami Sbahi broke another world record at the Canadian Open 2015, solving a 2×2 in just 0.58 seconds.

Draughts

Representatives from 19 countries gathered at the International Open Draughts Tournament in Salou, Spain, where the winner was Jan Groenendijk of the Netherlands.

Magic: The Gathering

Taking a turn at the table, Level 2 Judge Sky Mason was champion of Grand Prix Providence.

At Grand Prix Copenhagen, Przemek Knocinski of Poland secured first place with a Merfolk deck.

Subbuteo

At the International Open in Rosario, Argentina, Claudio Murcilli topped both the open and veterans sections.

Another tournament seeing significant international participation was the FISTF Major in Bologna, Italy. There, Juan Noguera of Spain took the trophy in the open section and Massimo Cremona of Malta came in first among veterans.

 

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