Andres Kuusk became the Estonian champion once again!

At the weekend, held in the Kullo Leisure Centre in Tallinn, the 2016 Estonian Individual Mind Sports Championship, four-time world champion Andres Kuusk achieved another victory with 155 points! Andres was ahead of his closest competitor, Martin Hõbemägi, with a seemingly safe lead of 9 points. In reality, however, things were far from rolling smoothly towards victory. Already in the opening round, in chess, Martin managed to surprise Andres in a mutual game, and only better odds saved Andres from defeat. In the course of Gomoku, it was difficult for both of them, but Martin eventually fought his way to first place and Andres to 8th place (defeating such a top player as Georg-Romet Topkin in the penultimate round). Andres won checkers again, but Martin was able to skillfully sprint to second place. Thus, Martin ended the first day with a 5-point lead over his big competitor. Unfortunately, the second day started with a real crash for the leader, Martin completely failed to solve the sudoku puzzles. At the same time, Andres, who had been feverishly crunching numbers before the competition, shone like a true champion in the difficult moment. Only real heavyweights Tauri Purk and Villem Mesila were halfway ahead of him. The last event, Lines of Action, did not shake the fight for first place. Andres won this one too, ahead of Martin. However, the bronze medal match was extremely tense until the last moment. Georg-Romet Topkin defeated both Andres and Martin in the Lines of Action tournament, but then lost to his sister, Anna-Brigita, and then to Villem in the decisive last game. This victory brought Villem a medal with 126 points. Georg-Romet was 3 points behind, Kuno Kolk 5, Brenet Rahumägi 6 and Tauri 7 points. Kuno was unable to play the last 2 rounds of the checkers tournament - it is very possible that otherwise she would have won bronze. The best female player was Madli Mirme. Also on the first day, the Kullo Mind Games Circle and the "Areng" Chess Club held a three-way competition, which guaranteed a large number of competitors for the first events. The three-way competition was won by Martin ahead of Andres, with Georg-Romet and Ardi Raag, who had recently turned 12, sharing third place. The best girl (played chess and checkers extremely well, but was a little behind in gomokukogenematus) was Jenna Jõerand. The results (both the three-way and five-way competitions are in one file) can be viewed here under the events that took place - http://www.vint.ee/yrituse-detailid/?event=548

The 2017 Estonian Championship in Mental Sports Pentathlon for Pairs is also in place - it will take place, like last year, in Karepa, at the Kullo Recreation Center, on July 15-16, 2017. The disciplines planned again are sudoku, chess, gomoku, checkers and bridge.