Nigel Richards claimed the trophy at the French Scrabble Championship, in French, which he doesn’t speak. But c’mon, it was Nigel Richards, for whom coming out on top of any Scrabble tournament in which he plays is a pretty safe bet. And in fact, it’s not uncommon for dedicated Scrabble players to compete in foreign language games. In many non-English-speaking countries, English Scrabble is still the predominant version played.

In another no-surprise win, Feliks Zemdegs took the Rubik’s Cube World Championship in Sao Paolo, Brazil. He also set a world record there for the 7×7 cube, solving it in 2 minutes, 23.55 seconds.

An average of 25 moves to complete the 3×3 Rubik’s Cube qualified Sébastien Auroux for a world record at the N8W8 Summer 2015.

Students in Michigan broke the U.S. record for toppling dominoes. Whether the same setup also broke a Rube Goldberg machine record remains in doubt because of several malfunctions. However, further investigation in to how backup devices functioned may yet deliver a record.

A Turkish diving instructor spent a world-record 72 hours under water. One of the ways in which he occupied himself was playing Backgammon.

After a three-way tie at the Nijmegen Draughts Open, Alexander Bulatov won on tie-breakers. Despite that, second place Anton Kosior took home more prize money, having also received awards for rating points, team competition, and rating group.

Shuhei Nakamura won Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Dallas/Fort Worth without losing a single game in the top 8.

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Brigitta Sinka of Hungary has broken the world record for total number of simultaneous Chess games played in a lifetime. The record was previously held by Cuban grandmaster Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-1942) and now stands at 13,600 (though by the time you read this, she’s probably played a few hundred more).

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen crashed on home turf, finishing in the bottom half of Norway Chess 2015 (also the first stop of the $1 million Grand Chess Tour). The winner was Vaselin Topalov, with former world champion Viswanathan Anand coming in second.

Bridge has been admitted to the 2018 Asian Games (to take place in Indonesia) by the Olympic Committee of Asia. Its bid (as well as that of Chess) for admission to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, however, was denied.

The winner of the World Crokinole Championship, Justin Slater, has been gunning for the position for 5 years, twice in that time coming in second.

A new world record has been set for solving a Rubik’s Cube with feet. Jakub Kipa did it in 20.57 seconds at the Radomsko Cube Theory in Poland.

The United Kingdom’s National Schools Top Trumps Tournament, sponsored by Winning Moves, started with 2,000 school-level tournaments, narrowed in an online round, and went to a live final. Coming out on top was William Gooch from Elloughton Primary School in Yorkshire.

Yu-Gi-Oh! events are divided in to two sections, one, Dragon Duels, for younger competitors (currently those born in 2002 or later), and one unrestricted. At the North American World Championship Qualifier event in Nashville, the winner in the open section was Noah Reid of Georgia; the winner in Dragon Duels was Austin Wesley Colling of Ohio. Both received similar prize packages included a trophy, complete sets of Secrets of Eternity and Crossed Souls boosters, an iPad, and expense-paid travel to the World Championship in Kyoto, Japan.

Indian Chess players performed well in recent tournaments. The world’s 25th ranked player Pendyala Harikrishna defeated defending champion Vassily Ivanchuk (ranked #27) in the final round  of the Edmonton International to claim the trophy. Abhijeet Gupta won the Commonwealth Chess Championship with a score of 8.0/9.

Nine year old Mhage Gerriahlou Sebastian of the Philippines qualified as Woman Candidate Master after winning gold and silver medals at the 16th ASEAN + Age Group Chess Championship.

A dedicated player who along with her late husband founded the Trinidad and Tobago Scrabble Association in 1985, Patricia John finally won the local Scrabble Masters Tournament herself and will be representing the country at the World English-Language Scrabble Players Association Championship, November in Perth, Australia.

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A new edition of the Collins Official Scrabble Words list has been issued with more than 6,500 additional entries. The new words will be legal for English-language tournament play outside North America. There the game is sold by Mattel and competitions controlled by WESPA (the World English-Language Scrabble Players Association).

Among the new words added were “lolz”, “emoji”, “cakehole”, “coqui”, “shizzle”, and “tweep” [only one of which was recognized by my spell-checker].

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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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Besides the Marvel, Jurassic World, and Magic: The Gathering games we’ve covered in separate articles, Hasbro’s Toy Fair reveals included news of Monopoly, Scrabble, The Game of Life, Minions, Star Wars, Disney Princess, My Little Pony, and preschool games.

For Monopoly’s birthday, Hasbro has already released a Monopoly 80th Anniversary Edition with wood houses, as well as licensed Coach to produce a high-end, New York-themed edition in leather. Through March 4th in partnership with BuzzFeed, the company is collecting votes to select cities for the next Monopoly Here & Now U.S. and World editions.

Scrabble will see two new versions in 2015, Scrabble Junior (spring, $15) and Scrabble Twist (fall, $20). The former has a two-sided board. On one side, children ages 2-4 match letter tiles to words that are already filled in. The latter is a handheld electronic game where the goal is to quickly find the word among five mixed-up letters, and then press the buttons in the right order.

A new version of The Game of Life just out replaces some of the careers with video game designer, singer, and secret agent, among others. The Game of Life Junior (spring, $15) is about collecting stars while having adventures, like at the beach or zoo.

In May, ahead of the upcoming Despicable Me Minions movie, Hasbro is launching the Minions Challenge Card Game. It’ll be sold in $3 blind bags containing one Minion figure and five battle cards.

Deploy your battle cards against your opponent and keep playing until your Minion reaches the top of this score card to win!

Sounds vaguely War-like.

For Star Wars there was only one game, Loopin’ Chewie (fall, $25), but it’s one that’s generating a fair amount of excitement. Though we already wrote about it, at Toy Fair we got some pictures.

A Disney Princess Candyland isn’t new but an update this year (fall, $15) adds Princess Frog.

In the fall, Hasbro will release My Little Pony Poppin’ Pinkie Pie ($20), an inverse hot-potato type game. Players attach balloons to a birthday cake and when Pinkie Pie pops out, that player is the winner.

For the preschool crowd, Mashin’ Max (March, $10) has kids moving pawns around the board to collect berries. Max in the middle, though, spins around and smashes his fist down to capture the players’ pawns.

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Mind Sports International (MSI) and the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) are teaming up for a new Scrabble tournament series [PDF]. The program will see local events feed in to satellite divisions and regional qualifiers. And from there, one in 60 will earn invitations (plus accommodation and a travel stipend) to the 2016 MSI World Championships.

While the word list in use at the World Championships will be CSW (Collins Scrabble Words), those used at individual events may vary, depending on the choice of the organizer.

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There’s not much free time on the International Space Station, which explains why it takes so long to finish a game of Scrabble. In Saturday’s installment of The Guardian’s “Do Something Guide to Games“, astronaut Chris Hadfield describes how boardgames are played on the ISS. As it turns out, they’re played very slowly. And with a lot of velcro.

Hadfield writes that games like Scrabble are encouraged to “help keep us sane” as boardgames are “fundamental for peace of mind”. Scrabble, a game that the astronaut has played with his family off and on for the past five decades, is one of his favorites. On the space station, the board is affixed to the ceiling. Letter tiles are attached to the board with Velcro. During breaks or meals, players plan their next moves. Due to the heavy workload, games can take months. Mission controls in five countries “are all scheduling your day, for the entire time you are up there….It’s an over-saturated life, where you occasionally get the time to play Scrabble.”

Read the full article at The Guardian.

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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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Playing Scrabble and stuck with a “Q” tile but no “U”? If you were playing with the Gamesformotion version, all you’d have to do is eat it. That’s because Scrabble is one of the company’s new chocolate board games.

Under license from Hasbro, Gamesformotion is also producing versions of Monopoly, Candy Land, Clue, and Battleship with cards, tokens, and other game pieces made from “the finest Belgian milk chocolate.”

Chocolate games will be available in Target, CVS, Meijer, and other retail stores for $10 starting in November.

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