Hello,
The thirteenth season of the Mental Sports Olympiad has come to an end. This year, over a thousand students from 85 schools participated in the competition. The most participants were from Viimsi School - 124!
Primary school results
There were a total of 527 participants in the elementary school, of which 93 students participated in all areas.
In the overall standings, Karl Samuel Leht from Tallinn Old Town Education College won again, collecting 1,304 points and taking one victory - in chess, Kaarel Roht from Viljandi Jakobson School came in second place with 1,266 points, and Frederik Lihtmaa from Viimsi School came in third place, collecting 1,127 points.
In the schools category, the Tallinn Old Town Educational College won.
Elementary school results
468 students participated in the elementary school, of whom 63 participated in all subjects.
For the third year in a row , Mikk Kaarel Õim from Tartu Kesklinna School won with 1,347 points (losing in gomoku, crosswords and chess), second place went to Lennart Lehto, a student from the same school, with 1,282 points, and third place went to Eero Sven Tuvikene from Nõo Basic School with 1,225 points.
In the school category, Nõo Primary School won.
High school results
99 students participated in the high school level, 18 of them in all subjects.
First place was again won by Illimar Kirss from Saaremaa Gymnasium, collecting 1382 points.
Only one point away was Oskar Treffner from Tallinn Science School!
Third place went to Kalev Orgse from Tallinn Old Town Educational College, collecting 1342 points. So the top three were exactly the same as last year!
In the schools category, the Tallinn Old Town Educational College won.
Congratulations to the best and thank you everyone for participating!
We would like to thank Ants Soosõrvu once again, who has been promoting this competition in schools for years and who helps with the delivery of prizes in Tallinn schools.
Named medals and trophies will be delivered to schools no later than May!
Have a beautiful spring,
Marten Meikop
Organizer of the Mind Games Olympiad
Mind Games Olympiad 2024/2025 - overall results
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Greetings and congratulations to all the future generations and statistics enthusiasts who have reached this rubric! I’ll immediately explain the point of this story – this result does not reflect the actual ranking of this year’s high school-level competition. Yes, the differences are marginally small, no matter which way it had ended, the point gap would still be small, but the order is wrong based on the actual result. However, I must first emphasize that my opponent was not the only individual who made some form of cheating. Yes, I call it cheating because individuals don’t just play for themselves, they play together or for a friend. I’ll list these cases of cheating all here down below:
In Chess:
illikas vs. pyyding : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15465886/ : draw before the first move. (II stage)
GermanHv vs. liikur : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15466654/ : draw in midst of the second move. (II stage)
HONDAR vs. Ярно : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15465367/ : draw before the first move. (II stage)
karigx vs. HONDAR : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15465902/ : draw after the first move. (II stage)
In Russian Draughts:
illikas vs. pyyding : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15351053/ : unfair game. (I stage)
illikas vs. siimmaster : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15472153/ : simply unfair game. (II stage)
siimmaster vs. HONDAR : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15472911/ : draw before the first move. (II stage)
HONDAR vs. illikas : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15472798/ : draw before the first move. (II stage)
GermanHv vs. illikas : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15473066/ : draw in midst of the first move. (II stage)
illikas vs. pyyding : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15665592/ : simply unfair game. (IV stage)
In Gomoku (SWAP2):
HONDAR vs. pyyding : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15355484/ : draw in midst of the second move. (I stage)
siimmaster vs. Ярно : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15355920/ : too quick draw. (I stage)
Ярно vs. HONDAR : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15465367/ : draw before the first move. (I stage)
illikas vs. Ярно : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15477225/ : draw before the first move. (II stage)
siimmaster vs. Ярно : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15477125/ : draw before the first move. (II stage)
pyyding vs. siimmaster : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15477585/ : simply lovely, innit? (II stage)
KuldarM7 vs. AndreiKOT0 : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15477327/ : and they took the advice seriously, showcasing yet another case of unsportsmanship. (II stage)
Grinskopp vs. AndreiKOT0 : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15477413/ : /.../. (II stage)
HONDAR vs. pyyding : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15585972/ : bunch of 17-year olds having 'fun' behind the board because they literally aren't able to draw the game before the first move anymore. (III stage)
siimmaster vs. HONDAR : https://www.vint.ee/et-ee/replay/15586059/ : and again, disrespecting the game. (III stage)
And countless times in sudoku solving.
(Surely, this and that has gone under the radar, but this amount should give an idea of the point fairly well.)
You might have noticed that I’m also highlighted in one of the games here. I had my own reasons for needing a draw; I didn’t know anything about the scheming by the people from Saaremaa at that moment, but unfortunately, this will remain in the background and won’t justify my behavior. This is just one instance where I made a mistake. And please, now take a look at the questionable connections with my opponent. There are significantly more of them. Personally, I would disqualify all parties involved in the aforementioned games from the respective tournaments. This is because they repeatedly violated the game’s norms. If it had been just once, I would have given both parties a warning by giving zero points to each for the game, but after so many occurrences, it seems that would not have helped.
So, to the point. Saaremaa Gymnasium (SG onwards) lacked supervision throughout the entire year. This meant that schoolmates competing in the same tournament in the same classroom could freely scheme, and naively continue with this until the rules were directly changed, but no, they were just adjusted. My school, for example, has strict supervision, and those who cheat are absolutely not tolerated, so even the middle school students in the same room with me are constantly reminded to behave and to not cheat in any way. One can speculate multiple reasons for SG's reasons: SG either didn’t have anyone to supervise at that time (by the way, why do high school students need supervision at all, they should be mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions and take responsibility for them, but it turns out they still need it), or they have a coach with a communist teaching style, giving tips on how to get through as nastily as possible, but still within the rules, or maybe something absurdly different, in any case, SG has at least indirectly broken the rules, if not directly. Dear interested parties, let me tell you a short story from my perspective of this year. I had a very hard time mentally competing this year, but I did everything I could to behave correctly and play fairly. I was the only competitor from my school in the high school category. SG, on the other hand, almost always had at least 6 students competing. Now imagine the picture where I’m alone, struggling and sweating to get the best possible result out of myself, and my opponent, whose classmates either surrender without a move or give up almost immediately after the game starts or agree to a draw without a fight, knowing full well that they are stronger and more capable of easily defeating the opponent in that game, gets everything going in his way. Oh, I was so tired by the end of the last stage on Tuesday (18th March) that if my patience had fully broken earlier, I would probably have gathered the chess players from my school and schemed my way to a higher ranking in chess with their help. But honestly, I wouldn’t have done that because I strongly oppose such behavior, having come out of that phase myself, and now I want to fight even harder against cheating. Comrades, SG tried to cheat in every possible way. Here’s one example that has not been made public yet: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMICGOd8Fzrw3ZzSFwRmMQiivXap-5cUn1WyQ10grppxnGb3875IGD5UtkCiToQ0Q?pli=1&key=V3V3RFZCRVdSenZYZHN0RXROX2ZNQ1dHT2hmVGRn . Take, for example, the Sudoku puzzles from the second stage. One of them found an interesting solution, and many others followed the same pattern. It was one of the most disgusting stages in the history of this competition, but this was also due to the 9x9 difficult Sudoku puzzle worthy of the Estonian Championships, but that’s a side note (I’m being a bit egotistical now and using the opportunity to say that I was head and shoulders faster than others on that last Sudoku puzzle because the students who had similar times either got the solution by accident or after prolonged trial and error). Bold behavior, where if the rules don’t exactly say what I claim is wrong, the opponent is still allowed to act however they want – that’s what made me the angriest. If next year no major changes are made, and the rules aren’t seriously enforced, I will urge everyone to boycott this competition because there is too much shady behavior in the rules and the accompanying conduct. I have already confirmed that the overall silver medal does not reflect the actual results of the competition and my placement by the end of this year’s competition, so I don’t wish to accept it. It’s better to save the money spent on making it. The representative of my school agrees with this position and respects it. And how dear you, dear Marten Meikop, knowing the twists and turns of the competition, to claim that this is not an honestly won one-point victory, and to emphasize it with an exclamation mark, it personally offends me! I understand that it’s still a hobby, and putting all your energy into it is a waste of time, but it’s starting to seem to me that it’s not enjoyable (mõnus mõtelda) to compete with such people anymore, especially when my positions are practically trampled on and solutions are pushed to the next year. I’m not demanding that you change the results, otherwise, people on the island will start brabbling - like I do here right now with this letter - , let them live in their dream, I will at least leave the audience and myself with the knowledge of who really won. To conclude, I can sigh and say that I deeply hope such a ridiculous year never happens again in any school level or any tournament!
With respect, always with the best wishes,
Oskar Treffner
I'm from Saaremaa and I don't complain when it turns out that the results were obtained with a hack. Unfortunately, I didn't understand half of your text (you probably used artificial intelligence to help you write the text?). I will contact the school management and the mind games instructor about this topic (by the way, I applied for this position at the same school, but the director "forgot" to contact me twice and I gave up) as soon as I get back to Saaremaa.
I wrote my original text in the lingua franca ; this is an automatic translation.
What nationality are you?? I've never heard such a language before.
A humorous answer :)! Google can tell you that nowadays it is known that this is English. I noticed when I watched my speech in English that I made some verbal mistakes, and in some places I used the negative incorrectly. Nevertheless, the idea of the speech remains clearly understandable: it is not a fair sport if I and my opponent do not have equal conditions (except for personal preparation = training; physical equipment and, I don't know, weather, whatever else you want to add to this list).
But why did you write the original text in a lingua franca, if your native language is (I guess?) Estonian? Did you want foreigners to know how things work in Estonian mental sports?
Yes, I wanted to practice a little English and didn't think about the fact that in forums in different languages, the text will at least be in English if not in the respective native languages. My mistake.
I did what I promised. Out of the 5 participants expected for the meeting, 2 came and they should be fully recognized - during the constructive discussion, a lot of clarity was gained in the case. Now all that remains is to wait for their feedback in the fints and hopefully we can continue with the Olympiad in a much more sporting manner next year.