The 2016 World Chess Championship in New York ended with Magnus Carlsen of Norway still at the top, though as I watched the match proceed, I was starting to wonder if he had it in him. After seven draw games, the first win went to challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. But two games later, Magnus scored a win of his own, and at the end of the 12 regulation games, all was tied. The tie-break rapid games were where Magnus showed his strength. The first two settled on draws but the next two went to the champion. Still, an impressive performance as well by Sergey and a very interesting series of games.

In the women’s Chess circuit, Ju Wenjun of China finished ahead of the Women’s Grand Prix, qualifying her to face Hou Yifan also of China in the 2017 Women’s World Championship.

Chris Cadman of Scotland took home the Silver Perudo Cup trophy of the World Perudo Championship (Liar’s Dice) in London.

The Top Chess Engine Championship was won by Stockfish. The score in the final 100 game match was Stockfish 54.5, Houdini 45.5. In third place was last year’s digital champion, Komodo.

Many Rubik’s Cube world records have fallen recently:

• The standard 3×3 was solved by Mats Valk in 4.74 seconds at the Jawa Timur Open in Indonesia. His record didn’t last long, though. Feliks Zemdegs beat it by one one-hundredths of a second (4.73 seconds total) at the POPS Open in Australia.
• At Melbourne Cube Days, Feliks Zemdegs also solved a 5×5 in 41.27 seconds.
• At the Shanghai Winter, Kaijun Lin broke three blindfold world records, solving a 3×3 in 18.50 seconds; a 4×4 in 2 minutes, 2.49 seconds; and a 5×5 in 4 minutes, 46.74 seconds. Two of those didn’t last long either. Roman Strakhov did a 5×5 blindfolded in 4 minutes, 42.06 seconds at the Finnish Championship. And Kijun Lin bested himself in the 4×4 blindfolded, solving it in 1 minutes, 41.90 seconds at the Bid ‘n Blind in Guangzhou, China.

The team from Greece won the World Magic: The Gathering Cup surpassing other top 8 finalist teams from Finland, Australia, Ukraine, Panama, Belarus, and Belgium.

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On the subject of Liar’s Dice, Mr. B Games has secured a license to republish the original. Expect it in time for the holiday season at a retail price of $30.

Available now from the company is Prospectus ($60), a game about apprentice mages trading in potion ingredients—owl tears, troll sweat, frog juice, pixie dust, and goblin wizz. The prices of these ingredients vary by the results of a crystal ball-like device, in which cubes representing the ingredients may get stuck from round to round. Players, though, can also manipulate the market prices by casting spells.

Mr. B next is shipping Warquest ($120, September), an epic fantasy game with 100 plus miniatures that’s supposed to play in 2-2½ hours. Warquest has both war game and adventure game elements with conquering territory and completing quests both legitimate strategies to victory. Mr. B confirmed to this old-timer that the game drew some inspiration from the 1979 TSR game, Divine Right. Unique adventure locations and characters are interspersed among the larger territories around the map board.

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The 2015 Perudo World Champion is Ian Smith of Scotland. He earned his silver cup for the game also known as Liar’s Dice at a tournament held in London and sponsored by Paul Lamond Games.

The Showdown in St. Louis Chess tournament paired Hikaru Nakamura with Fabiano Caruana and Hou Yifan with Parimarjan Negi in a series of matches including Basque Chess (where opponents play two games against each other simultaneously), Fischer Random (where the starting positions of pieces in the first rank are selected randomly), Rapid (with a time control of 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move), and Blitz (3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move). The big surprise came in Blitz, where Caruana took down Nakamura, the top-ranked player in that variation, 4.5-3.5. With that, Caruana was able to claim the $60,000 top prize. Between the women, Negi took both sides of the Basque but otherwise it was Yifan who dominated and claimed $30,000.

Tom Martell won his third Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix in Atlanta with an unexpected green deck.

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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.

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