Neil 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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At the world’s largest Scrabble tournament, the King’s Cup in Bangkok, the favorite going in was Pichai Limprasert, who had won all six previous tournaments in Thailand this year. Scrabble powerhouse Nigel Richards, too, was down in seventh place, so after 24 rounds, Pichai’s chances were still looking good. But never bet against Nigel in Scrabble. He managed to claw his way back to a spot opposite Pichai in the final, where he won with scores of 445-403, 397-491, and 469-356.

Though leading the Grand Chess Tour, Magnus Carlsen has withdrawn to begin preparing for the World Chess Championship in November against Sergey Karjakin.

The winner of the 22nd World Computer Chess Championship was Komodo, a program out of the United States running on a 48-core Intel i7 platform. The previous champion was Jonny, a German program running on a 2,400-core AMD x86-64 platform. After Komodo and Jonny tyed for first at scores of 7.5/10 in the main part of the tournament, it took five drawn games of increasingly tighter time limits before Komodo won in the sixth.

Guillermo Rodriguez of Spain took home the trophy at WizKids Dice Masters World Championship by going with a Mask Ring team but substituting in a Half-Elf Bard from Dungeons & Dragons Dice Masters: Battle for Faerûn.

Feliks Zemdegs has set another Rubik’s Cube world record, a 6.45 second average in the standard 3×3.

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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.

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The 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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The Top Chess Engine Championship saw Komodo calculate its way ahead of 23 other digital competitors to claim the title for the second series in a row. In the final round, facing Stockfish, another former champion, Komodo won eight games, Stockfish won two, and 90 were a draw.

Among humans, the Manhattan Applesauce defeated favorite team, the St. Louis Arch Bishops, to claim the 2015 United State Chess League Championship. The crucial win in that contest came on the fourth board when 12 year-old Akira Nakada defeated Nicholas Rosenthal.

Though he didn’t have an easy time of it, World Champion Magnus Carlsen won the London Chess Classic and therefore also the Grand Chess Tour.

A Chess game of a different sort took place in Lake Sartash in Russia. Yes, I do mean “in the lake“, which by the way, was frozen over at the time.

At the River Hill Fall event in Maryland, first Keaton Ellis beat the 3×3 Rubik’s Cube single-solve world record with a 5.09 second performance, then Lucas Etter topped that with a single-solve in 4.90 seconds.

Meanwhile, at the MPEI Open in Moscow, Roman Strakhov solved a 5×5 blindfolded in a world record 5 minutes, 4.81 seconds.

Zhao Jian of China won the World Series of Mahjong in Macau. His prize was HK$406,000 and a 24 karat gold Mahjong neclace.

The winner of the Magic: The Gathering 2015 World Cup was team Italy.

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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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It was Yusuke Takanashi of Japan’s fourth time winning the World Othello Championship, which this year took place in Cambridge, U.K. and earned him a $3,000 prize.

The winner of the World Scrabble Championship and a $10,000 prize was 32 year-old Wellington Jighere of Nigeria. To prepare for the event, Jighere had spent the previous 4 months in training full-time. At the tournament, he beat out 450 other players, including perennial favorite Nigel Richards, who only came in eighth.

The top trophy of the World Chess Championship for the Disabled, which took place in Dresden, Germany, went to Alexey Smirnov, representing the Russian chapter of the International Braille Chess Association. Placing 53rd but tops in inspiration was Shailesh Nerlikar of India, who has to play lying down and with the aid of an assistant to make and record his moves.

Feliks Zemdegs scored four Rubik’s Cube world records on his way to the top at Melbourne Cube Days. In one, he beat the previous record (which he held himself) for solving a 5×5 by 0.28 seconds (the new record is 46.97).

A world record-sized Twister mat (27,159.616 ft²—equivalent to 1,200 standard mats) saw play by singer Thomas Rhett and fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas

World no. 10-ranked Chess player, Wesley So, came in first at the Bilbao Masters, ahead of Viswanathan Anand (no. 3), Liren Ding (no. 8), and Anish Giri (no. 9).

The Trinidad & Tobago National Chess Championship was won by 24 year-old up-and-comer, Kevin Cupid, who has his sights on high-level international tournaments next. The National Women’s Championship was won by Aditi Soondarsingh for the ninth time.

Seven-hundred forty-eight students of California Baptist University playing Bunko set a new world record for most individuals playing the game at a single venue.

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Hikaru 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.

The 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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Nicolò Falcone of Venice, Italy won the 2015 Monopoly World Championship in Macao. His prize was US$20,580, an amount equivalent to the bank in a standard Monopoly game. Sponsored by Hasbro, the tournament brought together 27 winners of national and regional Monopoly competitions. In the final game, Falcone played with the race car token against Tsutomu Doita of Japan, Brian Valentine of the United States, and reigning Monopoly World Champion, Bjørn Halvard Knappskog of Norway. At one point in the game, a multi-player trade gave each a property color set.

The Pentamind World Championship, an event of the Mind Sports Olympiad, seeks to find the best all-around game player in the world. Players score “pentamind points” based on their rank in each game played and the player with the most points from their best-five games is declared the champion. That person at the 2015 event, August 23-31 in London, was James Hepell, who also won the Diving Chess World Championship.

At the 2015 Electric Football Championships in Richmond, Virginia there were events for kids, novices, experienced players, and members of the Miniature Football Coaches Association. The winner of the Legends Tournament was Darrel Smith.

The final game of the French Subbuteo Open saw brothers Mongi and Fayçal Rouis play to a tie, broken only by Fayçal in a shoot-out.

Roman Strakhov solved the 5×5 Rubik’s Cube blindfolded in a world-record 5 minutes, 18.65 seconds.

Levon Aronian of Armenia won the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, claiming its $75,000 top prize. The Sinquefield Cup is the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour.

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Seth 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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