Mind Sports Pentathlon World Championships 2016

In the morning session I played abalone. In the first round I lost to a Korean girl who gave the impression of a real expert and finally achieved 4 points out of 5. After wins in the second and third rounds, I also lost to David Pearce and with that my hopes were also extinguished. In the end 3 points out of 5, which of course there is nothing to be done about. The traditional winner was the Frenchman Vincent Frochot. At the same time, both Ankush and James Heppell collected 90 points in Rummikub and Ankush already has four 90-point results together. It is difficult to see who should be able to beat him. I will skip the second session and play a completely new game called trench in the evening.

I'll start quietly settling down then. Let me know if you need anything else from Estonia ;) I'm flying out on Friday morning.

A completely new area, trench, which was added to the program only a few weeks ago, brought the first victory. At first, things didn't seem rosy at all when experts from Portugal came here specifically for this area. While trench was new and unknown to the multi-players, it turned out that Portugal has already hosted several tournaments and the aces there didn't think it was much to climb there to show their level. Instead of panicking or switching to 5 card draw at all, I decided to gather all my strength and flush the guests from Portugal. Planned to be done. In the first round, I couldn't hit everything, but the game went smoothly and the experts surrendered one after another. Apparently, the addition of specialists was actually a benefit, because I got a huge adrenaline rush from it and I had just as much energy as in the good old days of 2010-2011. The reward was a sweet 92 points and now I have two results over 90 points. Ankush already has four 90s, but it's worth considering that both of mine are unplanned and therefore pure bonuses. From now on, all I have to do is do my best and get a medal. Tomorrow I'll rest the first session - today this strategy worked well - and entropy the last two sessions. A lot depends on that: a clear second place or second to third would make my medal hopes even stronger, and if I finish first, I can start thinking about competing for gold. At the moment, Ankush is still the main favorite, although Ricardo Gomes leads the current standings - interestingly, my poker player instinct told me after the first session that Gomes is a strong medal contender this time, despite the fact that last year he was only 9th. Ankush is currently second and defending champion Heppell is third, my bronze medalist David Jameson is fourth, and I'm also ahead of the Englishman David Pearce and the American Etan Ilfeld. Paul Smith and Matthew Hathrell are breathing down my neck. Tomorrow the fight continues and gets increasingly exciting.

Great job! You've proven yourself once again as the world's best new game acquirer.

Andres decided to play in the morning session and will participate in the Mental Calculations World Championship. Hopefully, this will give Entropia a good start!

Mental Calculations is over. Andres went for a short walk to clear his head and mentally prepare for Entropia. The result from Mental Calc doesn't give him anything. He got 3 points out of 5 possible, which puts him in about 10th place out of 30 participants. Now all thumbs up for Entropia!!

Unfortunately, only 4th place from entropy. It's good that it went anyway, because in the meantime I won two games in a row with a one-point difference. That was the first setback where the expected result did not come. Worse still, Ricardo Gomes won Carcassonne and not only leads the current standings, but is now probably the main favorite for gold. As always, when things go badly, I'm a bit on edge and don't feel like writing long. Long day tomorrow - decamentathlon, kamisado and Omaha. Let's hope for the best.

The fifth day started with the decamentathlon (solving tasks in the form of a test). The results will only be known at home, but judging by the class, it went quite well, maybe I'll even make it to the top three. I won't get the necessary points from there, as first place gives 87 points, which may not be helpful. In the afternoon, I did my thing in the trump card, kamisado, which, as a relatively cheap area, unfortunately only gives 90 points. However, now I have three 90 results together and two more could already be a medal-like result. Actually, considering that my fourth and fifth results are 88 and 87, then I have 453 points together and on a good day that might be enough for bronze. Defending champion James Heppell hasn't had a good year and if he doesn't regain his old form, he may not even reach 453 points. In the current standings, I took the lead for the first time, but only 5 points ahead of Ankush. It should be noted that both Ankush and Ricardo Gomes will definitely beat my current result, so I definitely need to get more to fight for brighter medals. However, today, while delving into the calculations with Ankush, we found that Gomes's situation is not as great as we thought. Since the 5 results that count have to come from enough different categories, he needs one more good result in the abstract games category. He will definitely get that - his trump card is continuo - but as long as it's not gold (which he got last year), it's probably not too bad. So, making a positive summary here, it seems that we are going in the direction that Ankush and Gomes will share the medals with three of us, and each of us has about equal chances for gold. Before the tournament, I wouldn't have thought that I would be in such a good position after five days. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Omaha. For a change, I played quite well, but unfortunately the final table is in this format bingo-lotto: hyper-super-double-triple turbo. Two big losses in a row with a river draw and no more was needed. Only two sessions are planned tomorrow and I will invest both in lines of action. If I get a result of over 90p, I could face the day off with a much calmer heart.

I can smell the beer and the ice cream is slowly melting :)

Lines of action 1-3 place sharing with James Heppelli and Martyn Hamer. I got the only loss from Heppelli, although there were critical moments in several other games. For some reason I didn't play my best today, but at least I had energy and fighting spirit. Unfortunately, exactly the 86 points that I didn't improve my result with would be worth it. It's good at least that Heppelli, who was leading until the last round, lost at the decisive moment, but still gained 20 points and rose to third. Ankush gained 2-3 points from some board game and he is still behind by about the same amount. After tomorrow's rest day, we will both be in blok and quoridor on Sunday and maybe also holdem, if I decide to play that instead of continuo. Ricardo Gomes really has hope of improving in continuo, which he won last year. James can play and win practically anything. It is practically certain that the medals will be shared between the 4 of us in the last session of the last day and again lost cities will finally settle everything.