Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has presented that country’s People’s Honor Award to two board game champions, Mr. Yoshiharu Habu and Mr. Yuta Iyama. Habu secured the lifetime Ryou title and is the first to have earned all seven major titles in Shogi, or Japanese Chess. Iyama is ninth-dan ranked in Go and last year secured the seven major Japanese titles of that game for the second time.

The People’s Honor Award has been given now 26 times since 1977, recognizing achievement in sports, entertainment, and culture.

• Comments Off on Board Gamers Bestowed National Awards in Japan

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 Cube; Neurology 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).

• Comments Off on Board Game Epilepsy

First it defeated the World Go Champion. Then it took down the world’s top ranked player in straight games 3-0. Finally, it won against a team of five champions working together. Now, with no serious competition left, the AlphaGo artificial intelligence program is retiring from the game. According to its developer, Google-subsidiary DeepMind:

The research team behind AlphaGo will now throw their energy into the next set of grand challenges, developing advanced general algorithms that could one day help scientists as they tackle some of our most complex problems, such as finding new cures for diseases, dramatically reducing energy consumption, or inventing revolutionary new materials. If AI systems prove they are able to unearth significant new knowledge and strategies in these domains too, the breakthroughs could be truly remarkable.

As one last gift to Go players, though, the program was set to play against itself over 50 games and the results are being published for study. One 9 Dan professional player described them as, “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before – they’re how I imagine games from far in the future.”

• Comments Off on With No One Left to Defeat, Go AI Retires to Solve the World’s Problems and Play Itself

The 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:

• 1 Comment

In Singapore, 605 people broke the world record for the most people playing Monopoly at the same time in a single venue. They were, though, allowed to stop playing after 30 minutes.

At 10 years and 9 months old, R. Praggnanandhaa of India is the youngest ever to qualify for the International Master title in Chess.

Li Chao of China postponed his wedding to accept a late invitation to the Norway Chess tournament. He was asked to fill in for Sergey Karjakin, who withdrew to begin preparing for the World Chess Championship.

These guys played Jenga Giant while the blocks were on fire!

Already the top professional Go player in Europe, Fan Hui has improved his game by 300 points since he began practicing against Google Alpha Go computer program.

Webster University’s fourth consecutive win of the President’s Cup (also known as the Final Four of College Chess) ties the previous record set by the University of Maryland Baltimore County 2003-2006. It’s also the sixth consecutive win for the team’s coach, Susan Polgar, who before Webster worked with Texas Tech University.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the tremendous successes of Nigerian Scrabble players, attributing it in large part to a “surprising strategy of playing short words.” Slate, responding directly to that article, pointed out that the importance of short words has been recognized by avid Scrabble players for many years.

Taking three straight games in the best-of-five final round gave Adam Logan his fifth win of the Canadian National Scrabble Championship.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

Bananagrams

Ten-year-old Louis Webber won the first Bananagrams Challenge in London. The live Grand Final event followed a series of classroom contests with 15,000 participants and an online Best of the Bunch series between representatives from each of the 500 participating schools.

Chess

A 32 year-old record has been broken for the smallest computer implementation of Chess. The new program, BootChess, requires only 487 bytes.

Players from Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo gathered at the Zone 4.4 Individual Chess Championships in Lome, Togo, where Oladapo Adu won the open section with a score of 8/9 and Omolabake Coker won the women’s section with a score of 7/7. Both winners hail from Nigeria.

After facing serious resistance from a former professional still playing the same openings he did 30 years ago, Wesley So managed to pull ahead and win the Bunratty Chess Congress.

Carissa Yip of Massachusetts continues to break records. At 11 years old, she is now the youngest ever female U.S. Chess master.

The open section of the Winton Capital British Chess Solving Championship was won by Piotr Murdzia of Poland. Among the locals, perennial winner Jonathan Mestel did it yet again.

Go

Seventeen year-old rising member of the insei league, Song Jihoon, won Korea’s Amateur Gosku tournament. He hopes to become a professional some day.

Su Guangyue, a fourth-year law student from China, took home the trophy at the 13th World Students Go Oza Championship in Tokyo. He had placed second last year.

Rubik’s Cube

At the Edinburgh Spring 2015, Oliver Frost completed a 4×4 in a world record 2:10.47.

Magic: The Gathering

Teruya Kakumae of Japan (champion of Grand Prix Kobe in 2014) finished first at Grand Prix Auckland on a fast-playing Mardu deck.

The final Khans of Tarkir/Fate Reforged Limited event, Grand Prix Cleveland, saw Bill Tsang champion on the strength of red commons.

Subbuteo

More than 200 players gathered in Frameries, Belgium for FISTF’s largest tournament of the year. Reggio Emilia placed first in the European team section, while the Italian team’s Emanuele Licheri won the individual open section.

Den Mulia was champion of the TFAS U19 Cup for FISTF in Singapore.

Brothers Cédric and Benjamin Garnier of France played each other in the finals of the Yokohama Satellite. Cédric came out on top.

Draughts

At the European Blitz Championship in Cannes, the winner in the women’s section was Zoja Golubeva of Latvia and in the men’s section Alexander Shvartsman of Russia.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

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.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

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:

• 2 Comments

Scrabble

Craig Beevers of the U.K. was declared the World Scrabble Champion at the Scrabble Champions Tournament in London. On the strength of “talaq”, “diorite”, and “ventrous”, he won the best-of-five final match 3-1. Beevers rarely competes in Scrabble tournaments. He does, however, organize them professionally.

Perudo

At the 25th Annual Perudo Championship in London the winner was Minna Fry.

Chess

Thirteen-year-old Sam Sevian earned his place in the record books as the youngest ever U.S. Chess grandmaster.

Go

Chimin Oh won the Go to Innovation tournament in Berlin. Chimin Oh is a 7-dan, former Korean instructor who now resides in the U.K. The tournament employed the Hahn scoring system, which awards points to the winner and loser of each game.

Rubik’s Cube

At the Austrian Big Cube Open, Mattia Furlan of Italy achieved a world-record average solving time for the 7×7 cube of 2:48.03.

At the Toronto Open, Antoine Cantin did the 3×3 one-handed in 8.75 seconds for a world record.

Subbuteo

Local favorite Nikos Beis took the trophy at the Grand Prix of Greece, besting 43 other contestants in the open category.

Hundreds of players from across Europe gathered for the Cardiff Grand Prix. The team event was won by the Valletta Lions of Malta, the open section by Wolfgang Haas of Austria.

For the third time in four seasons, Mark Farrell of Dublin was declared the World Amateur Subbuteo Association’s All-Ireland Champion.

Magic: The Gathering

Seth Manfield of the United States triumphed at Grand Prix Ottawa. In the draft top-8, Manfield squeaked by in the quarter-finals but proceeded to decisive victories in the semi-final and final matches.

Grand Prix Strasbourg marked the first title win for Tamás Nagy of Hungary. He hopes to take that winning spirit with him to the upcoming Magic World Cup.

The win at the standard-format Grand Prix San Antonio went to Ryan Scullin of Rhode Island.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

In Anaheim, Patrick Hoban of Georgia survived three round of single-elimination top-16 draft to claim the title of Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series Champion. Among the younger Dragon Duel competitors, the winner was Kenneth Bevens of California.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

Up for auction at Bonhams in San Francisco, a late 19th century carving in ivory of monkeys playing Go, estimated at $1,200-1,800.

• Comments Off on Monkeys Playing Go