Shogi

Awake defeated Ponanza, claiming the top spot in the Shogi Deno Tournament in Saitama, Japan. Both are computer programs, and along with three other computer players earned the opportunity to compete against humans for a 2.5 million Yen prize next March.

Scrabble

Nigeria placed first at the Africa Scrabble Championship, followed by South Africa and Zambia.

Christopher May clinched the British National Scrabble Championship with a record of 13-4 +1287 by playing “MATH”. Yep, that’s it.

Go

In a repeat performance of last year, Kim Sooyoung and Jeon Junhak of Korea claimed the trophy at the International Amateur Pair Go Cup. Their final game was against Chinese Taipei and was won on a resignation.

Draughts

The World Youth Draughts Championship in Tallinn, Estonia was divided in to boys and girls, minicadets (under-14) and hopes (under-11) sections. Among all the sections, the top spots were dominated by players from Russia and Belarus. In minicadets girls, the winner was Vera Gorbacheva of Russia. In minicadets boys, the winner was  Anatolyi Protodyakonov of Russia. Leading hopes girls was Maryia Chasnakova of Belarus. Leading hopes boys, Miraslau Kuzniatsou of Belarus.

In Lishui, China the 3rd Xingqui Tianxi Cup International Open Draughts Tournament saw Mourodoullo Amrillaew of Russia at the top of the general section, Natalia Shestakova of Russia lead the women’s section, Yiming Pan of China boys under-14, and Yurui Liu of China girls under-14.

Rubik’s Cube

At Człuchów Panzer Cube 2014 (Poland), Jakub Kipa set a world record at solving the 3×3 cube with feet, 25.90 seconds.

With an average time of 9.47 seconds in 3×3 cube, the winner of the Asian Championship in Matsudo, Japan was Sei Sugama. The same tournament saw a world record 37.83 Megaminx solve by Mitsuki Gunji.

Chess

After six rounds of the World Chess Championship, current champion, Magnus Carlsen, leads challenger and previous champion, Viswanathan Anand, 3½-2½.

First place in the Tashkent leg of the FIDE Grand Prix went to Dmitry Andreikin with 7/11 points.

Magic: The Gathering

Grand Prix Nashville was a Khans of Tarkir team limited event. Of the 464 registered teams, the one of Matthew Nass, Jacob WIlson, and Jesse Hampton came out on top.

At Grand Prix Santiago (standard), Brazilian players proved tough opponents for local Chileans, with Eduardo dos Santos Vieira coming out on top.

Immanuel Gerschenson of Austria won Grand Prix Madrid, where the modern format saw a strong performance by a variety of older cards.

More than 4,000 players showed up for Grand Prix New Jersey (legacy) but in the finals it came down to roommates, Tom Ross and Brian Braun-Duin, with the latter taking home the trophy.

Other

Fantasy Flight Games’ World Championship Weekend saw eight different players declared champion, one in two separate games:

• A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Melee)—Dan Seefeldt
• A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Joust)—Sam Braatz
• A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Overall)—Alexander Hynes
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game—Jeremy Zwirn
• Star Wars: The Card Game—Mick Cipra
• X-Wing—Paul Heaver
• Warhammer 40,000: Conquest—Jeremy Zwirn
• Warhammer: Diskwars—Francois Fressin
• Android: Netrunner The Card Game—Dan Dargenio

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

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.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

The Asahi Shimbun reports that nine new universities in Japan added academic courses in Go this year, bringing to 16 the total number that are working with Nihon Ki-in (the Japan Go Association). Typically the courses are offered through athletics departments with the goal of improving students’ tactical thinking skills.

• Comments Off on Go for Academics

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.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

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.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

Scrabble

The final game of the UK National Scrabble Championship was played between two former champions, Paul Allan and Allan Simmons. This time, Paul Allan clinched the title with the play of “bandura” (which is a Ukrainian lute) for a triple-word bingo worth 86 points. (For those trying to figure out how “bandura” is worth 86, the “d” was a blank, the “r” finished “tar”, and the final “a” was placed on the triple-word space and also finished “ta”.)

Chess

Chess continues to be played while the World Championship is underway…

In fact, other matches being played in India to celebrate the Championship included one for blind players, which was won by 16 year-old Sai Krishna, and the Women Grandmaster Tournament.

Ryan Harper of Trinidad & Tobago won the Umada Cup in Aruba.

FIDE selected 13th-ranked Peter Svidler for the open slot in the next Candidates Tournament, bypassing higher ranked players such as Alexander Grischuk (ranked 5th) and Hikaru Nakamura (ranked 4th).

While the FIDE Presidential Board approved plans for six Grand Prix events in 2014, agreements for only four have been signed so far. If the remaining two end up not happening, the two spots reserved in the next Candidates Tournament for Grand Prix winners will instead be selected one from the World Cup and one from the ratings list.

Backgammon

In the open section of the Capital Classic Backgammon Championships in Herndon, Virginia, the winner was Greg Merriman of Michigan.

At the Merit Open International Backgammon Championship in Cyprus, Sergey Erokhin of Russia took home the masters trophy and the team of Haris Christidis and Konstantinos Mitrelis from Greece the doubles trophy.

Collectible Card and Miniatures Games

Fantasy Flight Games’ World Championship Weekend was held in Roseville, Minnesota, where Alvaro Rodriguez of Spain claimed the title of Joust World Champion for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game. Ryan Jones, though, was crowned Melee World Champion and Overall World Champion. In the Android: Netrunner tournament, the winner was Jens Erickson. Jeremy Zwirn, the 2012 champion of Netrunner and Warhammer: Invasion, this year won at Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Dennis Harlien triumphed in the tiebreaker for Star Wars: The Card Game. Oliver Franke of Germany moved up from his second place finish last year in the Warhammer: Invasion championship. And in the final game of the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game tournament, Paul Heaver battled back from a two-ship deficit and eliminated his opponent’s last ship with only one hull point to spare.

Rookie and new hometown hero, Luis Navas, won Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Santiago.

Samuel Marti of Switzerland claimed victory with a blue-green deck at Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Valencia.

At the Legend of the Five Rings Pacific Rim Championships, Edward Bareng claimed victory for Lion. Alexander Iarstev, playing Scorpion, was the winner at the Legend of the Five Rings South American Championships.

Go

For the fifth year in a row, a Korean team has won the International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo.

Draughts

The winner of the European Draughts Championship was Peter van der Stap of the Netherlands.

The winner of the Portugal Open was Guntis Valneris.

Other Games

The winner of the 24th World Perudo Championships in London (the game is also known as Liar’s Dice) was Dan Reade.

From a touring series, 14 youngsters were invited to participate in the UK Lego Chima Challenge Championship, where Reggie Pegrum (age 9, from Waltham Abbey, Essex) was declared the winner.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

Chess

Manoj Kumar won the Fiji Bitter Chess Championship. After a tie-break game, Kabrina Terubea took the title in the women’s section.

High school student, Tanraj Sohal is the youngest player ever to win the British Columbia Closed Chess Championship.

Grandmaster Alex Shabalov of Pennsylvania won the 4th Continental Class Championships in Arlington, Virginia. After defeating his chief rivals in rounds four and five, he coasted through the remaining two.

It was upset city at the National Challenger Chess tournament in New Delhi. None of the top four seeded players finished high enough to qualify for the first National Champioinship event scheduled for December. Instead, 20th seeded M.S. Thejkumar finished in first. While the first nine players from this tournament are guaranteed spots in the National Championship, since current World Champion Viswanathan Anand is not expected to participate, 10th place finisher, B. Adhiban should also qualify.

It was an underdog also that took the top position in the European Chess Club Cup, Czech G-Team Novy Bor.

At the Asian Cities Chess Team Championship, Tagaytay City (Philippines) finished in first place with 17 points. China’s Shanghai and Wuxi both ended with 15 points but Shanghai edged out Wuxi in the tiebreaker to claim second. From the Tagaytay team, grandmaster John Paul Gomez finished ahead of all others to win the individual competition, the Dubai Cup.

Looking forward, the 2014 Candidates Tournament has been scheduled for March 30th in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

Backgammon

Malcolm David of Texas won the Florida State Backgammon Championship, Alex Zamanian the Connecticut State Backgammon Championship, Kenji Shimodaira the 19th Japan Backgammon Open, and Minakami Tsuyoshi of Japan the Chicago Backgammon Open.

The inaugural Gibraltar Backgammon Festival featured elite and novice sections. Two former world champions participated, along with representatives of 15 countries. The winner was Tilman Sohnchon of Germany.

Subbuteo

At the Subbuteo Challenge Cup in Manchester, Brian Dailey was the winner in the senior category and Kye Arnold the winner in the junior league.

Magic: The Gathering

At Grand Prix Antwerp, Patrick Dickmann, twin brother of another Grand Prix champion, bested a field of 1,600 to come in first place.

Monoblack Devotion carried Brian Braun-Duin to victory at Grand Prix Louisville.

At Grand Prix Hong Kong, Shuhei Nakamura claimed the sixth title of his career.

Other Collectible Card Games

Jacek Jachymowski of Poland was the winner of the 2013 European Championship for Legend of the Five Rings.

Draughts

Jean Marc Ndjofang of Cameroon endured a rising room temperature on the final day of the ADG Amersfoort Open Championship (Netherlands), yet managed to maintain his lead and take home the trophy.

In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the World Women’s Championship was won by Zoja Golubeva of Latvia, the World Blitz Championship by Matrena Nogovitsyna of Russia, and the World Rapid Championship by Darya Tkachenko of Ukraine.

Go

Despite a majority of European players, the 8th Korea Prime Minister Cup International Amateur Baduk Championship was dominated by Chinese and Koreans. At the top was Park Jaegeun of Korea, followed in second by Fu Li of China.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard

For all their simplicity, boards for the game of Go (also known as Baduk in Korea)—hand-carved or made from rare wood—can cost a pretty penny!

I thought I’d found something incredible when I discovered this $20,000 sea turtle design on eBay:

But no! It turns out that’s cheap compared to one board carved from Kaya wood, aged 20 years, and priced at $100,000:

• Comments Off on You Can’t Afford This Go Board

Scrabble

Surprising no one, Nigel Richards of New Zealand won the Brand’s King’s Cup Crossword event in Thailand. The King’s Cup is the largest Scrabble tournament in the world and this was Richards’ tenth win.

Abigail McDonald is not only the winner of the latest Guyana National Scrabble Championship but also the first person ever to have won it three times in a row. Her prize for the achievement was $50,000 and a trip to the world championship in Prague.

The Winner of the Penang International Scrabble Championship in Malaysia was Pakistani Mohammad Inayatullah—his prize 3,000 Ringgits.

Chess

With over a thousand players, the 41st World Open in Arlington, Virginia suffered some major organizational problems—some match-ups weren’t announced until after the games were supposed to start and many of the players weren’t provided with boards and pieces, so they had to go around borrowing sets. In terms of results, there was a ten-way tie for first place in the open section! Only a blitz playoff gave Varuzhan Akobian the champion title and an extra $70 (out of a $20,000 divided prize).

The 2013 International Championship of Slovakia in the town of Banska Stiavnica was more of a festival than a contest, with medieval costume and sword-fighting demonstrations and musical performances. Two Chess grandmasters played each other blindfolded while people reenacted the game on an adjacent life-sized board. Oh, and by the way, Tomas Krnan of Canada came in first place in the tournament.

At the Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games, China won three out of four gold medals in Chess, and also took home two silver and one bronze. The remaining gold was won by Vietnam.

Partial results are in for the World Championship in Composing for Individuals (WCCI) 2010-2012. Each participant was allowed to submit up to six puzzles published during the 3 year period in each category. The winners in the Twomovers category was Marjan Kovačević, in the Threemovers category Aleksandr Feoktistov, in Moremovers Mikhail Marandyuk, and in Endgame Studies Sergiy Didukh.

Manoj Kumar won the Rajnesh Parmeshwar Memorial Chess Championship in Fiji.

Shahriyar Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan won the FIDE Grand Prix in Beijing, beating out Boris Gelfand of Israel.

In the Commonwealth & South African Open Chess Championship Abhijeet Gupta of India finished first in the open section, Knowledge Ndlovu of Zimbabwe first in the B section, and Rakesh Kulkarni of India first in blitz.

Go

At the Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games, China and South Korea earned six medals each—including golds in women’s team, men’s individual, and mixed pair for China and men’s team for South Korea.

Magic: The Gathering

Seth Manfield took the trophy in the Modern Constructed format Grand Prix Kansas City using a Melira-Birthing Pod deck.

Reid Duke battled back after losing the first game of the finals and mulliganing down to 5 in the second, eventually taking the title at Grand Prix Miami.

Dominoes

They weren’t playing a game but a team in Germany toppled a record-setting 272,297 dominoes.

• Comments Off on Scoreboard