World Mind Games 2010 - Andres Kuusk won the silver medal!

For me, day 4 ended when I got two 3s in a relatively poor position, and I went all in. But as has become customary in such situations, one of the opponents has a stronger pair among the first two cards and wins. That's how it went this time too and I had to accept leaving the table. Canadian studs (pot limit): This is a type of poker where 2 cards are laid out on the table in the first hand. One face up, the other face down. Then a betting round, and then the next 3 cards are laid out face up one by one. So 4 cards remain on the table for everyone to see, and one card for each person to see. In addition, there is a rule that it is possible to get a flush and a straight with 4 cards. But a four-out-of-five flush does not beat a straight. An exciting game - too bad it ended so quickly. Meikop, this type could be played at all! Andres just came and showed his powerful chip stack. Since some players have left the game, the tables will be rearranged and the game will be played on two tables instead of three. Let's hope he still makes it to the final table. I probably gave him half of my chips in support of that anyway :P See you tomorrow!, when hopefully there will be hot news on the subject of entropy.

I don't understand why there are so many different types of poker at such an event (poker is not a mental sport :)!). One would obviously have been enough. So please, some of the event organizers/participants should also take a look at how mental sports associations operate in other countries - maybe we can learn something from them. I think that with the results so far, the minimum program has clearly been exceeded. Good luck anyway!

In world history, strange and completely unpredictable things happen from time to time. 50 years ago a man stepped on the moon, 20 years ago the Berlin Wall fell, now I won a poker tournament. Two common statements were also refuted. First, I have always said that I practically never have luck (especially in even-numbered years) - this time I had a lot of it and left it to chance. Second, poker players always claim that it is a game of skill - sorry, poker aces, but this can only be true in the very long term and to quote John Maynard Keynes, then ´In the long run we are all dead´. In one particular tournament, even an experienced player cannot do anything without luck, and if you are significantly more lucky than everyone else, you can close the tournament without even understanding the game. The only thing I paid any attention to was the ratio of the money invested to my bet and comparing it with the probability of winning. And I rarely used that and then incorrectly. However, there were several regular tournament players among the participants who shuffled cards like Mr Wild Card (what movie was that from?) and rolled chips between their fingers like Johnny Depp's gold coins. But my cards were playing like crazy and that was the deciding factor. In fact, I did use one strategy. When I was ahead of everyone else and everyone before me had folded or called, I immediately shoved in a larger amount with the aim of 'stealing' the initial bets. It is very inconvenient for opponents to call such a raise, because on top of everything else I may already have a pair in my hand. The beginning of the game actually didn't look good, I was already on the verge of the end at the first table, but I still managed to hold on and even make a profit in the end. At the second table, things got pretty bad (I managed to fold a pair of queens when my opponent raised big after getting an ace from the ground - it later turned out to be a bluff), but somehow I still managed to squeeze myself into the top 8 of the final table. When the final started, I was firmly in last place, at least 2-3 times behind everyone, some even 5 times behind me. But everything turned around with three consecutive big wins, which immediately made me the leader. From that moment on, nothing could stop me. My success increased with practically every hand and soon I had a stack of chips in front of me that even all the others combined couldn't match. When the last 4 players were left, everyone else was languishing somewhere between 500 and 1500 with a 100 ante and a 500 blind, while my elusive stack of chips was well over 10 thousand. Of course, winning the tournament was a sweet bonus. Since I didn't expect anything from poker, I'm not entirely sure how many points I was rewarded for it, but since the number of participants was very large, it could be from 80 to 100. I haven't looked at the overall standings yet, but the calculations show that I've probably taken the yellow leader's jersey. Also, the ever-increasing chance of a medal finally dawned on me yesterday - I couldn't get a good look at my friend all night (of course, my snoring Spanish roommate also played a part). Since I'm already nervous, I might as well familiarize myself with the rankings. However, things have gone so well so far that I wouldn't want to do anything that could turn my luck around, so I'll probably postpone it until the evening when the Entropia tournament is behind us. Overall, it seems that the expected favorites have performed rather poorly than expected so far, which is of course a very welcome phenomenon. However, many of them still have their trump cards to play (the tournament is only halfway through), while my cards are largely on the table. I'm mainly hoping for tomorrow's Boku and Othello, but the small number of participants in these areas can be fatal (very deep and purely skill-based areas, where surprises are not forced). So perhaps the last chance to achieve a result of over 90 is in Entropia, which starts in 10 minutes, which was the first of the previously unknown areas here for both me and Tiidu, where we decided to start developing ourselves. Huhh, the nerves are so strong that it's hard to write with shaking hands. Better off to the tournament.

Good job, close some more areas! Of course, it also became clear why you didn't like that the memory game was on the agenda for the brain teasers competition - 50 years ago, Gagarin hadn't yet been flown into space, but was still patiently waiting for the launch command, and it would still take quite a few years to reach the Moon ;) But well done anyway!

I read and wonder, my heart warms - Estonian mental sports are world-class and we should be proud of our friends. Andres' victory is just a matter of formalization, I myself was initially afraid of something like a dream place among the top 15. I think we should go to the airport with the delegation and help carry the piles of medals home. I guess it's a good thing I couldn't go myself, next to these guys the result would have looked very pale.

PS Good luck for the remaining tournaments! PPS I would have liked to have knocked Andres out of the chess tournament, as has happened accidentally at several recent mind games EMVs.

is, however, already officially a mental sport and even a member of some kind of association. I apologize for having lived 12 years purely on "happiness".

Today was a real disaster. Not only did we get destroyed in tournaments, but on the way to the lodge we got caught in such a downpour that all our clothes are still soaked. I needed to start praising the luck that fell on my lap yesterday. In a way, the destruction in Entropy could have been predicted. Since the creator of this game, Eric Solomon, is a person close to the organizers of the World Championship, the level here is absolutely top of the world. In fact, this tournament is actually the Entropy World Championship and therefore all the top players in the world are present. The long six-hour tournament obviously exhausted us, so after 4 hours there was no more of us. So I finished 50% and Tiit was even behind. The only success can be counted as Tiit's stylish victory against the guest of honor of the tournament, Eric Solomon himself. The tournament was won and thus the world champion was won by the Spaniard Garcia, leaving last year's champion, South African Alain Dekker, in second place. I was able to play with Dekker myself, and it can be said that compared to the world's top players, the difference in level is still quite enormous - you could say that while I played Entropia, he played some other, much higher-level game. Poker went about as unlucky or even worse.

Pineapple pot limit: In this game, each opponent is dealt 3 cards, followed by a betting round. Then one card is burned, and the flop (3 cards) is dealt. Then all players in the game discard one card, and the game continues like in Texas Hold'em - after the betting round, a card is burned, and a fourth card is dealt, and after the next betting round, a card is burned again, and a fifth card is dealt. The best five-card combination wins. It seemed like a pretty exciting game - at least that's how much I managed to play it. One thing that was confirmed was that I'm probably one of the worst poker players in the world. I managed to outplay myself in the first 5 minutes! :D I didn't even manage to put the small blind on the table once. But the good thing is that you don't have to pay separately to participate in them, and there will be more of these pokers. You have to keep a positive attitude :) I'm Tiit, I accidentally wrote under the name Fantunes :) But that was already clear from the story :)

In response to Lauri's comment - it's not historical knowledge that has left me behind (I know that Apollo 11 reached the moon in 1969), but calculation skills. It's good that you're not signing up for a mental calculation tournament here. In response to Marten's question - there are about 10 poker tournaments played here (all different types) and the winner is determined by the sum of all tournaments.