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

In the Challengers group of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in the Netherlands, Ivan Saric of Croatia clinched victory with one round to spare. In the Masters group, Levon Aronian of Armenia, the world’s second-ranked player, did the same but then scored his only loss in the final round.

The Zurich Chess Challenge, a combination of classic and blitz games, saw Fabiano Caruana lead in the blitz games. He couldn’t, however, catch up with Magnus Carlsen’s performance in classic, which also contribute double to the total point score. Overall, Carlsen was the winner, followed by Caruana, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Viswanathan Anand, and Boris Gelfand.

Two playoff games were required for Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria to win the masters section of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival and a £20,000 prize.

Ronald Terubea claimed the National Blitz Open Chess Championship title in Fiji by defeating the Fiji Chess Federation’s Vice President in a tie-breaker game.

Twelve-year-old Saurabh Anand of India took home a trophy nearly bigger than himself after winning the first South Asian Amateur Chess Championship in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The champion of the Batang Pinoy Blitz Tournament was Woman FIDE Master Shania Mae Mendoza.

A Philippine, Jelvis Arandela Calvelo, also won the Melaka Chess Open in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A fourth-grader, Andrew Glassford, won the K-8 section of the MLK Classic in Montgomery, Alabama.

Magic: The Gathering

A change-up of strategies in the final 8 worked for Fabien Li as he took home the winner’s trophy at the last Theros limited event, Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur.

Alexander Hayne of Canada was undefeated in the final 8 of Grand Prix Vancouver, which also marked his third GP title in 6 months.

Scrabble

At the Crossword Kerala State Scrabble Championship in India, Lloyd Pearse took the overall title and Asha Kamath the title in the women’s section.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

Navigating the new War of the Giants drafting process, Christian George of New York dueled his way to the top at the Atlanta inaugural of the 2014 Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series. In the Dragon Duel section for younger players, the winner was Oliver Hinton. Both will receive invitations to the 2014 World Championship Qualifier.

Backgammon

Kenji Nishizawa of Japan won the Istanbul Open Backgammon Championship, besting 124 players in the championship section. Over 20 countries were represented despite no money prize.

At the Texas Backgammon Championships, the winner among 72 players in the championship section was Masayuki Mochizuki of Japan. In the West qualifier for the U.S. Backgammon Federation National Championship winner was Jonah Seewald of Colorado.

Rubik’s Cube

The winner of the Berkley Winter tournament was Richard Jay S. Apagar, who completed the standard 3×3 in an average of 9.05 seconds. Brandon Harnish, however, put in an outstanding performance in Skewb, with a North American record best-single of 4.31 seconds and a world record average of 6.21 seconds.

A European single Skewb record of 4.69 seconds was set by Oscar Roth Andersen at the Skanderborg Open in Denmark.

At the CCFC Winter in Connecticut, Noah Arthurs completed a 4×4 blindfolded in 3:31.22 for a North American record.

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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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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.

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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.

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Chess

Already the highest rated player ever, Magnus Carlsen is now also the World Chess Champion. He won the Championship in Chennai, India by beating Viswanathan Anand 6½-3½ in 10 games, apparently without the help of any seconds (advisors). [Update regarding seconds]

In Chennai, India, besides the World Chess Championship, there was the Chennai Grandmaster International Open Chess Tournament, where 14 year-old FIDE Master V R Aravindh Chithambaram bested several grandmasters to claim victory. Also in Chennai was the Women International Grand Master Chess Tournament, where Mary Ann Gomes of India, Batsiashvili Nino of Georgia, and S. Vijayalakshmi of India tied for the lead with 8.5 points each. Tie-breaker games, though, gave the win to Ms. Gomes. And the National Under-9 Chess Championships saw Nihal Sarin take the trophy in the open division and Divya Deshmukh win in the girl’s division.

The winner of the 23rd Individual World Senior Chess Championship in Opatija, Croatia was Anatoly Vaisser of France. The winner of the Women’s Senior Chess Championship was Yelena Ankudinova of Kazakhstan.

The Miami Sharks devoured the New York Knights 6½-½ to claim the champion title of the US Chess League.

Magic: The Gathering

Finally, in his 13th top-8 appearance, Owen Turtenwald took home the trophy at Grand Prix DC. Then the very next week he also won Grand Prix Albuquerque!

Two Canadians and an American (Rich Hoaen, Alexander Hayne, and Mike Hron) triumphed at Team Limited Grand Prix Kyoto.

Dominoes

A team of high school students in Austria assembled and toppled 100,080 dominoes, which sounds like a lot but isn’t even close to a record. Part of their construction, though, was a 6.02 meter high tower, which most certainly is a record—it’s higher than the previous tower by 0.745 meters! Watch it fall in this video:

Backgammon

“The Las Vegas Open Backgammon Tournament is by invitation only.” Nevertheless, the winner was Dana Nazarian.

Other

Bobby Brake, the Summer Champion, returned to conquer the Kaijudo Winter Championship in Irving, Texas.

At Melbourne Cube Day, Feliks Zemdegs set three new Rubik’s Cube world records: 6.54 seconds (average of five) for the standard 3×3 cube, 55.33 seconds (average) for 5×5 cube, and 9.05 seconds (best single try) for 3×3 one-handed.

Seven year veteran of the UK cubing circuit, Thom Barlow, won the UK Rubik’s Cube Championship, finishing first with an average time of 10.64 seconds in standard 3×3. At the top of Swedish Cube Days was Giovanni Contardi of Italy, of the Zeeland Open was Antonie Paterakis of Greece, of the German Nationals was Philipp Weyer, and of the Atlantic Open was Louis Cormier of Canada.

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Magnus Carlsen of Norway is the new World Chess Champion!

Going in to game 9 trailing Carlsen 5-3, Viswanathan Anand had no choice but to play more aggressively and take some risks. And in fact, leading as white, Anand took the game in a more dynamic direction than any played earlier in the match. It was an exciting game—the kind fans had been waiting for—in which Carlsen later acknowledged he had few real options. And yet, after 3 hours of play, just as the reigning champion was making his big attack, he failed to notice an obvious move by his opponent and played the wrong piece. Carlsen was able to block the attack and shortly after that, Anand resigned.

At this point, Carlsen needed only a single draw or win among the three remaining games in order to take the crown.

But game 10 opened with Anand giving it his best—and finally choosing a Sicilian defense as black. The pressure seemed to get to both players, though. Each made errors during the game, losing out on some distinct opportunities. The two continued to fight through a knight end-game, even promoting pawns to queens along the way. But the balanced positions could not be shaken. All other pieces were eliminated and a draw was called at move 65, one capture short of king-on-king.

[image via Susan Polgar]

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Games 5-8 certainly added some drama to the World Chess Championship! Reigning champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen had played the first four games to draws, resulting in a tie score of 2-2.

The next two games, however, saw Carlsen outwit his opponent, grabbing two wins, and taking a lead of 4-2. Anand’s play was more conservative, while Carlsen continued to prod and push for a win even in situations where conventional wisdom suggested that he should be satisfied with a draw.

Game 5 was long and hard-fought with no clear leader for most of it. Yet Anand faltered in the end-game and resigned after 5½ hours and 58 moves. In game 6, Anand started strong as white and appeared to be winning for much of the game. Again though, his end-game failed after 5 hours of play and 67 moves. “Today is a heavy blow; I won’t pretend otherwise,” Anand admitted after the game.

With half the match over and the champion two points behind, most observers expected Anand to push harder for wins in games 7 and 8. Both, however, unfolded without much excitement—that is, during the games themselves. Game 7, in fact, was almost called for Anand by default. Carlsen only arrived at the board with 14 seconds to spare!

Once game 7 was underway though, the two rivals seemed to be playing lines they had well prepared, and the result was a fifth draw. As Carlsen explained in the press conference afterwards, “What happened in the game was just drawish.”

Game 8 saw balanced positions on each side. The resulting draw after 1¼ hours and 33 moves could only be described as boring. As commentator Lawrence Trent put it, “All very interesting stuff, except that it wasn’t… If you’re in the United States, please go back to bed. If you got up early and you’re in Europe, I apologize for that. It was a rather damn squid.” Said Anand, “It was my job to liven it up. I guess I’ll try it in the next game.”

He’ll have to do that if he intends to catch up. Only four more games remain (barring tie-breaks) and the current score has Anand trailing Carlsen 5-3.

[images with permission by Paul Truong via Susan Polgar]

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At the World Chess Championship in Chennai, India the first four games have all ended in a draw. Yet getting there has been much more interesting than that record would suggest! In fact, I’d say that the games represent well the extended competition of a 12 game match.

Ending after only an hour-and-a-half and 16 moves, game 1 was a warm-up—Anand and Carlsen feeling each other out and positioning themselves psychologically for the remaining 11 games. Carlsen, taking the lead as white, played a pretty standard game. Anand, too, decided to forgo any radical approaches and let the game play to a draw based on repeated moves.

The second game extended to 25 moves. However it finished even quicker, ending after only an hour and 10 minutes, and again in a forced draw. By the speed of his turns, it appeared that most of the moves played had been prepared and studied in advance by Carlsen.

Game 3 was much more interesting. At one point, Anand was up two bishops to Carlsen’s one, while Carlsen’s queen was stuck in the H1 corner. The Norwegian also ran pretty close to the first time control. Anand’s advantage didn’t hold, though. At move 40, he offered a draw, which Carlsen rejected. Yet the draw couldn’t be avoided and was eventually called at move 51.

For game 4, the intensity of play ramped up even further. Over the 6 hour, 64 move game advantage was traded several times between the players and spectators were treated to a number of interesting developments—including the trading of queens before move 10, Carlsen taking Anand’s A2 pawn with his bishop, Anand almost running out of time twice, and careful rook positioning in the endgame by both players.

After a one day rest break, game 5 starts Friday afternoon at 3:00 India-time. Even if you don’t have the time for a whole game or the schedule to see it live, I highly recommend watching at least some of the video feed. The team of official commenters does a great job of explaining the players’ strategic options and providing background on the tournament.

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