Mind Sports All-Around World Championships 2013

Well, I'm done with my nails, but I hope you're doing well :D

Quick post, more details on the results later. Andres shares the world championship title with Ankush with 492.5 points. Congratulations! :) Martin is the junior pentamind world champion and is in 5th place overall with 448 points. So good :)

Congratulations to Andres and Martin! Madli, we are also proud of your coaching work!:)

Awesome! Congratulations!

We decided to play monopoly on Saturday morning. It didn't do Andres much good, because there were 7 participants in total, including Ankush. Andres, Martin and Ankush were the three of them at the final table, and Andres took a strong second place and Martin took first place. I was definitely fourth, had more points than Ankush, but it was only at the end and unfortunately I was not given a medal. In the evening, the boys played individual bridge and I tried my hand at my own. I was the last to be eliminated before the final table, but by that time the boys had not even finished the first round. The problem was that while the organizers had provided piles of decks of cards for bridge, the judge - David Pearce - was not given any other tools to organize the tournament. So, bids had to be made on paper and the handouts were only set at the beginning of the tournament. The tournament lasted until midnight and then another round was left unplayed. When there were still three rounds to play, a worried Ankush came looking for me and asked if I had played bridge before. I said that I had, and it was decided that I would participate in bridge instead of a gentleman who walked away. I played one round against Ankush, where he claimed I did well, and one round in pairs with Andres, where I had to play one hand myself, for which we got maximum points :D Overall, Martin was second in bridge and Ankush was third. Ants has obviously done a good job training Martin ;) On the last day, there was boku in the morning. In the last round, Andres was the leader facing Ankush. Andres had to get 1.5 points out of two possible to secure victory. In the first game, Ankush had black, but could not make a decisive winning attack. The game ended in a draw, and both players had barely 1 of the 10 minutes allowed for two games. The last game went very quickly, Ankush was unable to defend against Andres and Andres got his fourth 100-point defeat. This meant that Andres and Ankush were exactly on the same score - both had 4 100-point defeats and both had a joint first place in Lines of Action. The last area was Lost Cities. If Andres or Ankush had come first or second, they would have secured the first place in pentamind. However, this did not happen, first and second place were taken by James Heppel and Alain Dekker, respectively. Before the award ceremony, Andres was pretty sure that he would not get the title. The problem was that before the competition, the so-called "tie break" rule had not been decided or written down anywhere. What decides the winner in the event of a tie? Andres calculated in every way that he would lose the title: Ankush had more golds, his total score was probably better, and his sixth result was also better. As a surprise, the first place was announced at the closing ceremony, which of course made us very happy. The main thing is now written, I believe that Andres will add his comments soon. ;)

I forgot to add that the full results are listed here. http://www.msoworld.com/2013-results/ and here is a short summary of the entire event and some pictures: http://www.msoworld.com/ and maybe a little interesting viewing from one of the areas that was planned for MSO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcmWv06iEwM

Congratulations to Andres Kuus for sharing first place!!! What a great achievement, what can I say here (y)

For now, the Mind Sports Multi-Competition World Championship is over. This time, it passed somehow very quickly and nervously and under the banner of tactical games. I will make a brief summary of what has been left behind in the posts so far. It all started beyond all expectations and with the great favor of the god of luck. An unexpected defeat in hare&tortoise and second place in lines of action and the maximum points achieved by half a point in entropy put me in an excellent position in terms of points, where the progress compared to last year was mountain-high. Unfortunately, Ankush was in terrible shape and already before the late evening session of the 7th day, he had 6 first places together and an incredible 492.857 points out of 500 possible. His victory in Carcassonne was especially painful, as my hopes were dashed by a blatant (and illegal) collusion by the English, where a competitor who had already settled for last place did everything in his power to prevent me from winning the round and give it to his compatriot. A clear blow. Unfortunately, it was not easy to prove anything and after long arguments I decided not to file a protest. Just when it seemed that the gold rush was over, it turned out that the goddess of fortune was with me from start to finish. Despite my already very poor stack, I unexpectedly came first in Texas Holdem late on the 7th, which meant that I needed another 100-point result to catch Ankush and pass the second (since I was expected to have a worse tie break). The real chance for one maximum score was lost, but how could I get the second? On the penultimate day, a big tactical game began, where last-minute substitutions were more the rule than the exception. I tried to leave the choice to the last minute, to choose a field with a sufficient number of participants (Madli and Martin were also ready to join my fields if necessary), where Ankush would not participate. However, Rivaal watched my every move and wherever I went, he was immediately on the field to keep the situation under control. In the first sessions, his strategy stuck - no suitable field appeared and I joined the monopoly, so that without having a chance myself (even a defeat would not have given enough points) I could support Madli and Martin. In the evening, however, the tactical game was successful and Martin and I joined the individual bridge tournament, Ankush following of course. In hindsight, this was a mistake, and the biggest failure in MSO history followed: for some reason, all the bridge equipment (except the playing cards) had remained at the organization's headquarters, and without bidding cards and card pockets, the game turned into a real joke, which ended rather unhappily for me. However, fortunately, Ankush did not lose either, which left me with at least theoretical chances before the last day. On the morning of the last day, I experienced good luck again, when with only half a point I managed to take first place and bring home the maximum 100 points. This meant that Ankush and I were now tied on the decimal point, both with 492.857 points. Ankush was even more nervous than I was, he was extremely anxious the whole last day, holding his head with both hands and repeating "I am destroying my Pentamind. I am destroying my Pentamind". This was clearly evident in the game, where he was significantly below his real level. There was no exact overview of the tie break, but the previously used summation of all events and also the better 6th result gave him an advantage, so he had to beat Lost Cities too. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed in that and so I had to wait nervously for the closing ceremony. I expected silver, but the organizers' bluntness regarding the tie break rule gave me hope. In 2009, determining the winner based on the sum of all events caused quite a scandal and was only resolved when Tim Hebbes, who was declared the loser, dropped the lawsuit at the last minute. This gave me hope that perhaps they wanted to avoid the same situation and not calculate the tie break at all. Of course, I was very happy when it turned out that this was the case and we were both given the marble trophy and the prize money was distributed. In light of the euphoria, it seems appropriate to also announce a slightly sadder news to the fans. I have decided to end my career as a semi-professional mental athlete, at least as an all-rounder. The life of a top athlete is simply becoming overwhelming: countless training hours all year round and a week and a half of constant, enormous nervous tension is a bit too much. This does not mean at all that I will not defend my title next year, I will definitely go and not only to the next one, but probably to several subsequent tournaments as well. Only as an amateur and purely for fun. This decision was made much easier by Martin's absolutely incredible performance at this tournament, which shows that a worthy successor is on the way. If someone had offered him 448 points before the tournament, I would have been willing to bet one in a thousand that he would not even come close to that. But he did, and how. If you look at the areas in which Martin mainly achieved success, it may seem that he was still extremely lucky, but he also showed mature play and a very rapid ability to develop in areas that were less successful in terms of points. It's incredible how easily he can outplay professionals and renowned poker textbook authors in poker, and how he defeated the world's best player in backgammon, Dario de Toffoli, from a 0-2 deficit. His main asset is his incredibly fast learning ability and ability to learn new games. He's no less than me in these aspects, and that's always been my strongest point. Finally, the top ten of the final table, who were also the only ones to surpass 400 points. 1st-2nd. Ankush Khandelwal (IND) 492.86 1st-2nd. Andres Kuusk (EST) 492.86 3. James Heppell (ENG) 480.99 4. Michael Dixon (ENG) 467.78 5. Martin Hõbemägi (EST) 448.81 6. Dario de Toffoli (ITA) 446.72 7. David Jameson (WLS) 435.78 8. Alain Dekker (RSA) 422.69 9. Matthew Hathrell (ENG) 411.55 10. Martin Thompson (ENG) 406.93 Madli collected 309.65 points and was 4th among women, falling behind 3rd place by just 10 points. Saravanan Sathyanandha from India, who earned silver and bronze after Martin in the junior classification, and Sam Smith from Guernsey were 23rd and 28th in the overall classification, respectively, losing to Martin by well over 100 points.

Well, a very good result from Martin Hõbemägi too, especially considering that he is only 15 and definitely lacking in experience! (y) Congratulations to him too!