Monopoly

At the Australian National Monopoly Championships, the winner was student Tony Shaw, who says that being a nice guy in negotiations was key to his success.

Scrabble

From the 55 teams of 4th-8th graders competed in the North American School Scrabble Championship at Hasbro’s headquarters in Rhode Island, it was Noah Kalus of New Paltz, New York and Zach Ansell of Los Angeles, California who claimed the trophies, computers, and $10,000 prizes. They won their final game 587-331. Noah and Zach were introduced by their common coach and played together online before teaming up together for the first time at last year’s championship.

Rubik’s Cube

Powerhouse Cuber Feliks Zemdegs, on the way to winning the Canberra Autumn, broke the world record for a one-handed solve of the 3×3 cube in 6.88 seconds.

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Scrabble

A world record was set for the greatest number of consecutive Scrabble games played in 24 hours. The record 30 games were played by World Champion Craig Beevers, who won the first 29 and lost the last.

Monopoly

The new Monopoly Canadian Champion is Andi Cameron of Ontario, who bested 47 other players May 1st & 2nd in Toronto. With the title came a $10,000 prize and a stake in the World Championship event to be held September in Macao.

Rubik’s Cube

Collin Burns not only won the Doylestown Spring, he also solved a standard 3×3 in a world record 5.25 seconds.

Other recent world records include:

• Haixin Yang solving the 3×3 one-handed in 8.27 seconds at the Chengdu Open.
• Oliver Frost solving a 5×5 blindfolded in 5 minutes, 35.84 seconds at the Welcome Back to Guildford.
• Jakub Kipa solving 3×3 with feet in an average 29.96 seconds at the Polish Open.

And then there was the guy who solved a Rubik’s Cube while spinning on his head:

Chess

The World Women’s Chess Championship began with a field of 64 players, narrowed to four for the semifinals, and finished with Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine besting Natalia Pogonina of Russia 2.5-1.5 in the finals. Mariya is the 15th Women’s World Chess Champion and took home a prize of $60,000.

For the fourth consecutive year, Webster University has won the President’s Cup, commonly known as the college final-four of Chess. The win also represents the fifth consecutive for coach Susan Polgar, who previously worked with Texas Tech.

Host country, China, won the World Team Chess Championship but came in third, following Georgia and Russia, in the women’s section.

At the Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir, Azerbaijan, a tough game with Viswanathan Anand started the tournament off shaky for world champion Magnus Carlsen. And yet he managed to pull out a draw and finish the rest of the event undefeated and the winner with 7.0/9 points.

Yochanan Afek has earned the rare honor of the grandmaster title for Chess composition. Chess composition is the development of Chess problems or puzzles. And within this realm, Mr. Afek specializes in endgame studies.

Twelve year-old Jonah Willow forced Grandmaster Alexander Cherniaev to a draw to pull third place at the Nottingham Chess Congress, thus also qualifying for the upcoming British Chess Championships.

Backgammon

Japanese players were the favorites at the 27th Nordic Open Backgammon Tournament in Copenhagen. Yet it was Dagfinn Snarheim of Norway who walked away with the trophy and 300,000 kroner prize.

Draughts

Allan Igor Moreno Silva of Brazil won his third consecutive Pan American Draughts Championship.

Subbuteo

The Grand Prix of Scotland was dominated by Greece, with Kostas Sesses topping 50 other players in the open section and Greece taking the trophy as well in the team competition.

In Malta an International Open one day was followed by a Grand Prix the next day. The former was won by Juan Noguera of Spain. At the latter, though, it was locals Samuel Bartolo in the lead for the individual competition and Valletta Subbuteo Club first among teams.

At the Open of Traiskirchen (Austria), Alexander Haas placed first in the open section and TFC Mattersburg first in the team section.

Magic: The Gathering

At the head of Grand Prix Atlantic City was Christian Calcano, Grand Prix Paris Amand Dosimont, Grand Prix Toronto Lucas Siow, and Grand Prix Sao Paulo Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa (his 17th time in a grand prix top 8).

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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.

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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.

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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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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.

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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

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Chess

More than 1700 people competed in the various tournaments of the Moscow Open. The rapid Superfinal, was won by Alexander Grischuk, who was the 2012 World Blitz Champion, after defeating Evgeniy Najer in a tie-breaker match. The Women’s Superfinal was won by Daria Charochkina. In the Men’s Cup of Russia, Alexander Moiseenko of Ukraine and Maxim Matlakov of Russia shared first place, having equal results on all three tie-breaker criteria.

Another event at the Moscow Open was a Chess-Shogi Biathalon, in which Boris Mirnik of Germany was the winner. Boris told organizers that he only plays Chess about once a year, preferring Shogi instead.

Baadur Jobava of Georgia won the Bronstein Memorial on tiebreaks in Minsk, Belarus after drawing his last two games early, both on move 15.

Hrant Melkumyan won the inaugural Casino Graz Open in Austria.

Magic: The Gathering

Special Grand Prix events over the previous year qualified 40 players for the first Super Sunday Series Championship February 8th and 9th. All received expense-paid travel from WOTC, met with WOTC execs, and had the opportunity to play some games with WOTC R&D. Also part of the weekend was a tournament that combined standard and draft, Theros, Born of the Gods, and Modern Masters. And taking home the $6,000 top prize was Owen Turtenwald.

At Grand Prix Paris, a player about to enter the top 8 was disqualified for errors made earlier in round 13. In the end, though, Javier Dominguez of Spain claimed the title.

A tough draft didn’t stop Mark Lalague of the United States from winning Grand Prix Mexico City.

Mahjong

Mathias Horvat took home the trophy at the second Mahjong Swiss Championship.

Rubik’s Cube

Mharr Justhinne Ampong solved Skewb in a world record 3.21 seconds at the Pangasinan Northern Express Open in the Philippines, only to be bested a day later by Brandon Harnish with a 2.19 second solve at Bay Area Speedcubin’ 2 in California.

At the Princeton Winter, Justin Mallari solved a 3×3 one-handed in 10.38 seconds for a North American record.

Perennial record-holder, Feliks Zemdegs, won the Melbourne Summer with an average of 7.17 seconds, while also setting an Oceanian record of 5.66 seconds for 3×3 single attempt.

A robot built with Lego can solve a standard 3×3 Rubik’s cube in 3 seconds.

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Chess

At the Asean Para Games in Myanmar, 72 medals were handed out in Chess. Indonesia took the largest number with 10 gold, 7 silver, and 4 bronze. In the men’s physical disability section, Philippines Roger Lopez and Sander Severino traded golds and silvers. Lopez won gold in the rapid games, where Severino took silver. In the standard match-up, it was Severino who claimed the gold and Lopez the silver.

Abhijeet Gupta triumphed at the Parsvnath Delhi International Grandmasters Chess Tournament with a 6-4 score of 8 points, ahead of five challengers at 7.5.

Bryan Smith of Pennsylvania and Elmir Huseynov of D.C. tied for first place at the Eastern Open in Bethesda, Maryland. In third place was Mikheil Kekelidze of New York, who’s two losses both followed sacrificing a white knight on g6.

Backgammon

Matt Reklaitis of Massachusetts won the New York Metropolitan Backgammon Open.

Scrabble

Taking home the trophy and ₹2,85,000 prize from the iGate International Scrabble Tournament was none other than Nigel Richards, whose record in the event was 29-6 +1891.

Magic: The Gathering

At Grand Prix Prague, unranked Vjeran Horvat of Croatia took advantage of the Modern format to win with a red-white-blue deck.

Tom Martell, Pro Tour Gatecrash champion, claimed first place at the Theros Limited format Grand Prix Sacramento with a black-white deck.

Rubik’s Cube

At Frankfurt Cube Days, Sebastian Weyer placed first in standard 3×3 with a national record (6.4 seconds best) and 4×4 with a world record (28.15 seconds average).

Several Asian regional records fell at Guangzhou Small Cubes, where Kailong Lee came in first at 3×3 standard with an 9.36 second average.

Three new single-best-time world records were set at the Lifestyle Seasons Summer in Melbourne, Australia. Feliks Zemdegs solved 4×4 in 24.66 seconds and 3×3 one-handed in 9.09 seconds. Jayden McNeill solved Skewb in 4.27 seconds.

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Chess

1,773 players from 121 countries competed at the World Youth Chess Championships in the United Arab Emirates. The medal tally was led by India with 8 gold, 6 silver, and 7 bronze. China took home 4 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze. One standout player was Ramesh Babu Praggnanandhaa of India, who not only won both the under-8 standard and under-8 blitz categories, he also won all 18 of his games, finishing the tournament with the only 100 percent record!

At the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship in Lubbock, Texas, teams from Webster University claimed 1st, 4th, and 6th place. Second place went to the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. The University of Illinois team came in 3rd, despite being seeded 13th and having no organized Chess program, no scholarships, and no coach. In 5th place but still qualifying for the upcoming President’s Cup (because Webster may only send one team) was Texas Tech.

Breaking ahead of a three-way tie, Ronald Dableo won the open division of the Philippine National Blitz Chess Championship. Cherry Ann Mejia won the women’s division and Darry Bernardo the under-14.

In the open division of the All India Open Dr Mohan Mawalge Memorial Blitz FIDE Rating Chess Championship the trophy went to Rakesh Kulkarni. But while 230 rated players participated, the winner of the under-12 division, Anand Nadar, also came in 5th in the open.

Magic: The Gathering

Ryo Nakada triumphed at Grand Prix Shizuoka with a White Weenie deck.

Rubik’s Cube

At the Warsaw Open, European records were set at an average 36.21 seconds for 3×3 with feet by Jakub Kiba and at an average 8.68 seconds for Skewb by Patryk Szewczyk. Tomasz Zolnowski was the winner in the standard 3×3 category with an average of 9.76 seconds.

The Korean Winter event saw victory by SeungWook Eun in the standard 3×3 category with an average of 9.87 seconds. A national record average of 34.06 seconds was achieved by Jong-Ho Jeong in the 4×4 cube. Another national record of 1 minute 17.46 seconds was set by Lee Jin-Hyung in 3×3 blindfolded.

No offense intended to the Korean record holder but Adrian Lehmann’s performance at Berlin Cube Day was even more impressive. There he set a national record of 34.11 seconds for 3×3 blindfolded.

By the way, the world record for 3×3 blindfolded Rubik’s Cube was set by Marcin Zalewski, who did it in 23.80 seconds at the Polish Nationals last June.

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