Victor is a Scrabble-playing robot installed in the lobby of the computer science building at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. What sets Victor apart, though, from other game-playing computers is not his skill at Scrabble—in fact, limited to words that appear in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, he’s not very good. Rather it’s his comments on the game that are most interesting.

Victor is prone to complaining about his tile draws and insulting the word choices of his opponents. The robotics department of CMU worked with the drama department to give Victor different moods and reflect those moods in what he says and on his animated face.

[via CNET]

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After 9 years without change, the The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary will be getting a revision this summer, with Hasbro seeking fan input on the update. The company, working with Merriam-Webster, is inviting the public to nominate new words via the Hasbro Game Night Facebook page. Sixteen of those will be open to public vote in a bracket-style competition on April 2nd and the final selected word will be announced on April 10th.

This Scrabble Word Showdown follows on Hasbro’s recent program to involve fans in selecting a new Monopoly token. And while I think we’ve all experienced that moment playing Scrabble when we wished “zysqot” was a legitimate word, I honestly wonder whether a public vote on words will contribute one that wouldn’t have been added anyway.

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For Hasbro’s 2014 product lineup, let’s start with the company’s most famous brand… Later this year Hasbro launches My Monopoly, a version of the game in which property spaces, tokens, and some of the cards can be personalized with the My Monopoly app or website. Images can either be uploaded directly or drawn off of popular web services like Facebook and Instagram—the latter option making it particularly easy to personalize the game as a gift. At $20 retail, My Monopoly comes with enough labels to sticker over the default board four times.

A simplified Monopoly Junior game ($15, available spring) for children as young as 5, limits money to just $1 bills; switches out the Atlantic City properties for an ice cream parlor, zoo, and swimming pool; and ends when the first player goes bankrupt.

Monopoly Angry Birds ($20, available fall) incorporates characters from Angry Birds, Angry Birds Space, and Angry Birds Go, as well as an action component. Players launch tokens at targets in the center of the board in order to score money and property bonuses.

More Angry Birds games also grace the TelePods line this year, in fact, a whole series in the fall for Rovio’s Angry Birds Stella. The Tree House Playset Game ($35) and Piggy Palace Playset Game ($25) introduce a new action element—the pigs must be knocked off their perches for the tree house or palace door to open. The Angry Birds Stella Birds Rock Together Collection ($20) requires players to knock pigs off of instrument stands so Stella and friends can form a band. And Angry Birds Stella Multipacks ($10 for two birds, one piggy, and accessories) and the Angry Birds Stella Friends Assortment ($6 for one bird and one piggy) allow people to build a collection of 20 Angry Birds Stella characters. All use the Telepods system for scanning figures with a mobile device and “teleporting” them in to the digital game.

Borrowing from mobile games, Simon Swipe ($20, available fall) is a slight update to the classic pattern-matching challenge. Now in addition to pressing a color, sometimes the player will have to swipe a finger along one of the pads.

Three of Hasbro’s party games get electronic treatments this year. Taboo Buzz’d, Trivial Pursuit Hints, and Catch Phrase Decades ($20 each, available late summer) replace the boards, cards, and score-sheets of the original games with battery-powered devices. For the most part, game-play is the same. However, Trivial Pursuit Hints will provide players up to three hints per question. For each hint taken, though, fewer points are scored. Catch Phrase Decades allows players to choose phrases from the 70s, 80s, 90s, or today.

In 2014, Hasbro is updating basic Scrabble’s graphic design and launching Scrabble Electronic Scoring ($20, available fall), which comes with a doohickey for recording scores and setting time limits on player turns.

Various Disney-licensed board games will see light in 2014. These include (available in the fall) Minnie Mouse’s Sweet Treats Candy Land ($15), Jake and the Never Land Pirates Operation Treasure Hunt ($20), and Sofia the First Monopoly Junior ($15).

Disney properties will also feature in a series of pop-up, three-dimensional board games this spring. All are basic spin-and-move games for ages 3+. The centerpiece of the series (literally) is the Disney Princess Castle Pop-Up Magic Game, which comes with plastic figurines of Ariel, Belle, Rapunzel, and Snow White for $20. Other entries in the series (all $13) are the Disney Princess Frozen Pop-Up Magic Game, the Disney Princess Cinderella’s Coach Pop-Up Magic Game, and the Disney Princess Tangled Pup-Up Magic Game. Playable separately, all four can also be combined in to one extended game by clipping the boards together.

Another new game for the young set (ages 4+) is the Play-Doh Launch Game ($20, available fall). It’s played by forming Play-doh in to different little shapes, then flicking those shapes in to the top of the canister rotating in the center. Pretty much like older kids do, but in to a neat container instead of at each other.

Finally, Hasbro is launching this year a game series that to me seems to have a little bit of a retro vibe, Battle Masters. Be calm, Warhammer fans, besides the name, this has nothing to do with the Milton Bradley title of the early 90s. Instead, it’s more like Rock Em Sock Em Robots, though without the requirement for a board or table. Plastic figures mount on trigger-grip or D-pad style controllers. Transformers Battle Masters will start selling in the spring, Marvel Battle Masters in the fall. Sets with two figures and two controllers will be priced at $25, sets with one figure and one controller at $15, and individual figures at $10. Yet the game isn’t entirely retro. Every product in the line includes a code for some sort of mobile game tie-in.

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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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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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The Mind Sports Academy program, which originated in the UK, will be launching in the United States in January. The American version basically works the same. It offers a training program, rating system, and traveling tournament series for Chess, Scrabble, and Magic: The Gathering. At the Grand Final event, cash prizes for each of these games will total $10,000.

Starting this coming January, events will take place in a rotating circuit of Las Vegas, Los Ageles, and San Francisco.

Those wishing to try out the program can pay $25 for a one-weekend pass. An annual membership costs $189.

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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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Mind Sports Academy offers UK members access to training programs, a ranking system, and a traveling tournament series for Chess, Scrabble, and Magic: The Gathering. Tournaments take place monthly and offer cash prizes. The membership fee is £12 per month or £120 for the first year.

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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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