Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresShogi

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

  • Comments Off on Scoreboard

Star Wars: Balance of the Force

Star Wars Balance of the ForceBalance of the Force is Fantasy Flight Games’ second deluxe expansion for Star Wars: The Card Game. In 154 cards, Balance of the Force adds two multiplayer formats to the game.

The first, two-versus-two team play, allows each side to share common reserves and pass one card to a teammate each round. It also incorporates support-attack and support-defense mechanics for helping teammates in combat.

The second multiplayer format is based on “challenge deck” scenarios. With a challenge deck, one player faces two or three opponents using a story-based, self-contained set of cards. For example, one of the challenge decks that comes with Balance of the Force, Jerjerrod’s Task, has the dark-side player attempting to complete construction of the second Death Star.

Supporting these multiplayer options but also useful in standard head-to-head play are several new objective sets that come with the expansion.

  • Comments Off on Star Wars: Balance of the Force

Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresScrabble

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.

  • Comments Off on Scoreboard

Scoreboard

Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresChess

For the eighth time, Deep Junior has won the World Computer Chess Championship. Deep Junior is a Chess-playing computer program written by Israelis Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky and running on a dual 12-core Intel Xenon I5 2.7 GHz computer. Its only loss during the recent tournament in Yokohama was to a German program called Jonny and running on a 2400-core system.

The Punjab State Under-25 Chess Championship was a success despite complaints of a lack of support from the state government. The winner was Pankaj Kumar of Bathinda.

Speaking of a lack of support, Chess is out for the 2014 Asian Games.

A well-run U.S. Masters tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina saw a number of upsets and the awarding of numerous titles (one Grandmaster, three International Masters, one Women’s Grandmaster, and one Women’s International Master). The tournament champion was Rauf Mamedov.

At the inaugural Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Magnus Carlsen came in first place, earning a prize of $70,000. It was also Carlsen’s first tournament in the United States.

Scott Varagona won the Alabama State Chess Championship for the fifth time.

Sri Lanka was a big winner at the 8th Asian Schools Chess Championship, with 16 medals, including one gold.

Dominoes

Eschewing the usual, Tom Holmes and Roland Trim of Bristol, UK, set a world record for standing up dominoes. They built a 5.275 meter freestanding dominoes tower, which is 20 cm taller than the previous record.

Scrabble

Wajid Iqbal was the winner of the 2nd Ranking Scrabble Tournament in Karachi.

At the British 42nd National Scrabble Championship semi-final match in Cardiff, Allan Simmons and Paul Allan advanced. The five game final will take place November 3rd in London.

Magic: The Gathering

Josh McClain was triumphant in the Modern format of Grand Prix Detroit.

Other Card Games

The 2013 North American Champion for Warhammer: Invasion only learned the game less than a month and a half before taking the title.

Tom Capor won the North American Championship for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game for the fifth consecutive year.

The first North American Champion for Star Wars: The Card Game is Matt Kohls.

  • Comments Off on Scoreboard