Has your enthusiasm for a game caused you to break out in song?

“Shooter Ready – Keeper Ready – Shoot!” was written and performed by members of the Australian Table Football Association (Subbuteo) as the official theme song for the just-finished Asian Cup.

“Push Em Baby” is the new official theme song for the Montreal Chessbrahs team of the PRO Chess League.

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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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Cartamundi has two new entries in its Shuffle line of app-enhanced card games. Shuffle Subbuteo is an adaptation of the tabletop flicking football (A.K.A. soccer) game in which the trick is timing card-play to beat the opponents goalie. The optional app features a scoreboard timer and stadium sound-effects.

In Shuffle Twister, players choose a card with a colored dot and then must follow the card’s instruction. Even picking a card becomes more difficult, though, as the players are further tied up in knots. The optional Shuffle Twister app adds more silliness to the game by randomly assigning additional actions.

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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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Rubik’s Cube

At the Indiana 2015, Kevin Hays solved a 6×6 cube in a world record 1 minute, 33.55 seconds.

Rami Sbahi broke another world record at the Canadian Open 2015, solving a 2×2 in just 0.58 seconds.

Draughts

Representatives from 19 countries gathered at the International Open Draughts Tournament in Salou, Spain, where the winner was Jan Groenendijk of the Netherlands.

Magic: The Gathering

Taking a turn at the table, Level 2 Judge Sky Mason was champion of Grand Prix Providence.

At Grand Prix Copenhagen, Przemek Knocinski of Poland secured first place with a Merfolk deck.

Subbuteo

At the International Open in Rosario, Argentina, Claudio Murcilli topped both the open and veterans sections.

Another tournament seeing significant international participation was the FISTF Major in Bologna, Italy. There, Juan Noguera of Spain took the trophy in the open section and Massimo Cremona of Malta came in first among veterans.

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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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Bananagrams

Ten-year-old Louis Webber won the first Bananagrams Challenge in London. The live Grand Final event followed a series of classroom contests with 15,000 participants and an online Best of the Bunch series between representatives from each of the 500 participating schools.

Chess

A 32 year-old record has been broken for the smallest computer implementation of Chess. The new program, BootChess, requires only 487 bytes.

Players from Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo gathered at the Zone 4.4 Individual Chess Championships in Lome, Togo, where Oladapo Adu won the open section with a score of 8/9 and Omolabake Coker won the women’s section with a score of 7/7. Both winners hail from Nigeria.

After facing serious resistance from a former professional still playing the same openings he did 30 years ago, Wesley So managed to pull ahead and win the Bunratty Chess Congress.

Carissa Yip of Massachusetts continues to break records. At 11 years old, she is now the youngest ever female U.S. Chess master.

The open section of the Winton Capital British Chess Solving Championship was won by Piotr Murdzia of Poland. Among the locals, perennial winner Jonathan Mestel did it yet again.

Go

Seventeen year-old rising member of the insei league, Song Jihoon, won Korea’s Amateur Gosku tournament. He hopes to become a professional some day.

Su Guangyue, a fourth-year law student from China, took home the trophy at the 13th World Students Go Oza Championship in Tokyo. He had placed second last year.

Rubik’s Cube

At the Edinburgh Spring 2015, Oliver Frost completed a 4×4 in a world record 2:10.47.

Magic: The Gathering

Teruya Kakumae of Japan (champion of Grand Prix Kobe in 2014) finished first at Grand Prix Auckland on a fast-playing Mardu deck.

The final Khans of Tarkir/Fate Reforged Limited event, Grand Prix Cleveland, saw Bill Tsang champion on the strength of red commons.

Subbuteo

More than 200 players gathered in Frameries, Belgium for FISTF’s largest tournament of the year. Reggio Emilia placed first in the European team section, while the Italian team’s Emanuele Licheri won the individual open section.

Den Mulia was champion of the TFAS U19 Cup for FISTF in Singapore.

Brothers Cédric and Benjamin Garnier of France played each other in the finals of the Yokohama Satellite. Cédric came out on top.

Draughts

At the European Blitz Championship in Cannes, the winner in the women’s section was Zoja Golubeva of Latvia and in the men’s section Alexander Shvartsman of Russia.

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That’s some kind of mash-up! Beatles figures for the Subbuteo tabletop sports game.

[via Paul Woody]

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Chess

At the FW DeVerteuil Memorial tournament in Trinidad & Tobago, Winter Atwell was the winner on a score of 6.5. His prize was $1,500.

Hou Yifan of China claimed her second gold on the podium of the SportAccord World Mind Games with a win in women’s Basque. The winner of the men’s Basque event was Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.

A turn of fortunes in the final round of the World Youth U-16 Chess Olympiad saw India end up in first place, Russia in second place, and Iran in third.

Go

After earlier claiming gold medals in the men’s team and women’s individual competitions of the SportAccord World Mind Games, the Chinese completed their sweep with a gold medal finish in the pair event.

Draughts

At the World Youth Draughts Championship in Poland, Nurguyana Azarova of Russia claimed first place in the girls junior division, Vera Khvashchynskaya of Belarus in the girls juniors blitz division, Artur Tunkevic of Lithuania in boys juniors, and Martijn Van Ijzendoorn of the Netherlands in boys juniors blitz.

Jean Marc Ndjofang of Cameroon won the men’s super blitz event at the SportAccord World Mind Games. In second and third place were friends and fellow Dutch players, Pieter Meurs and Roel Boomstra.

At the World Blitz Championship in Hilversum, Netherlands, the top player was Alexander Georgiev of Russia.

Backgammon

Akiko Abe Yazawa of Japan won the American Backgammon Tour Las Vegas Open.

Odis Chenault won the California State Backgammon Championship.

And Mehmet Akis won the Cyprus Backgammon Open.

Bridge

The individual champion at the SportAccord World Mind Games was Geir Helgemo of Monaco.

Rubik’s Cube

At the Red Cross Cubing Open, Collin Burns set a North American record by solving the 3×3 in 5.93 seconds.

Xiangqi

The Toronto pair of Zheng XiMing and Mark Wang WeiQiang won the team competition of the North American Cup, while the trophy in the individual competition went to Michael Hu of New Jersey.

The SportAccord World Mind Games saw gold medals go to Hoang Yen Nguyen of Vietnam among the women and Chuan Jiang of China among the men.

Subbuteo

The local Olympia team came out on top of the International Open in Athens. In the individual section, Spyros Hantzaras was the winner.

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