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

The winner of poker is determined by the sum of all tournaments - does this mean that Andres' tournament win still gets him the points for the underdog win in his overall standings, or are these points also distributed according to the overall standings? And is it the same with poker as with chess, that only one poker result can be included in the overall standings? Since the standings have become so exciting, I tried to find the current standings on the games' website (I googled "mind sports olympiad"), but I couldn't. If someone finds the standings of this overall standings, maybe they could post the top part of the table here. Today was probably the decisive day - I'll keep my fingers crossed for Andres and Tiidu! Pihel

As for poker, it's not even certain whether the overall result or the best individual result will be taken into account (which is what we initially thought). I couldn't find any more detailed information on this, so I'll check with the organizers. The official MSO website is www.boardability.com and the Multi-Competition World Championship's website is http://www.boardability.com/game.php?id=pentamind, but it seems that they don't add information there very quickly. However, you can find out about the history of the competitions there and, for example, the list of previous world champions. But we'll try to post the overall ranking here soon (we couldn't find any more results late last night, so we don't even know the exact situation yet).

So, I looked into it - the best poker result counts, just like in chess. The poker overall standings are simply to determine the winner of this area. The overall standings are not available online, because they are not done using some clever program, but an Excel spreadsheet, and therefore it is not official yet (not sufficiently checked). Typical English conservatism. Today is an important day, our last trump cards are Boku and Othello/reversi. PS. Marek is definitely right about that after a sufficiently large number of tournaments, skill will start to outweigh card luck in poker, the success of a layman like me the other day simply proved that everyone has a chance in a single tournament.

The Boku tournament just ended. I was hoping for the best in this area, as I had trained with Karepal Matu (our future hope for the renju, Martin Hõbemägi) and I could also count on an Estonian advantage (it is a member of the 5-row game family, which is doing well in Estonia thanks to Ants). It seems that the training paid off, but there was no question of any Estonian advantage. We fought for first place with Tim Hebbes and David Pearce throughout the tournament and the battle ended with a 1st-3rd place tie. A follow-up tournament was held to determine the winner, where unfortunately I managed to kill both games with black (black starts in Boku) and thereby ruin my chances. Hebbes and Pearce are currently playing the decisive final game. I also discussed the general situation with Pearce, the world champion in 2007 and 2008, and he considered his chances to be the best - he said he still had 3 main trump cards to play. He estimated my chances as equal to that of the Spaniard Garcia, but thought that at least one more very good result was definitely needed. Of course, with this very good result it will be difficult - after Othello there are no more trump cards left (there may also be a chance of a surprise in Abalone) and there is a fear of points drying up due to the small number of participants. It seems that the house will have clarity on this issue by the evening, the Othello tournament starts in half an hour.

London Lowball (pot limit) This is a game that is essentially 7 card stud: 2 cards are dealt face down and 1 card is dealt face up. Then there is a betting round, and then 3 more cards are dealt face up one by one, and the last card is dealt face down. The difference is that the lowest combination wins, and the ace has a value of 1 (so the ace is the lowest and best card). You have to find the worst combination of fives out of the 7 cards. Generally, there are no pairs at all in this type of game, let alone the toughest combinations. However, if you have a full house, for example, you will still have a pair if you throw away 2 cards. I thought that since you have to get the worst possible combinations there, then it would suit me, but these things don't really work that way. I was eliminated relatively quickly again.

My hopes of earning such a high score in Othello were dealt a death blow before the tournament started - three local experts in this game had arrived. As expected, these experts eliminated almost all the multiple competitors and took the first two places. The positive thing about it was that they eliminated ALMOST all the multiple competitors, but not quite all of them, and that they took TWO first places, not three. I managed to win one of them and I fought the other one as if I was equal to the other. Only with the later winner Turner was the difference in level too obvious to offer equal competition. Despite being the best in multiple competitors, the 77 points I earned did not make me very happy and to get a medal you have to significantly surpass yourself in the remaining areas. The Twixt tournament that took place at the same time was won by the Armenian Thakhar with a clear victory. I played his last round games with the two-time world champion David Pearce, whom he knocked out in passing. There is nothing better than watching a real champion in action. What's especially great about multi-sport is that you can completely destroy someone in one area, but the next moment you can destroy the same opponent in the next competition. Tomorrow morning we have a day off. Tiit will probably even take the whole day for tourist mats, I'll probably join the Alfred`s Wyke tournament in the afternoon. Acquire and Go are not for us and neither is Alfred`s Wyke, but it's a completely new game and maybe the competitors don't feel too confident there either.

Today, a German TV channel was at the tournament venue with its cameras. The main focus was of course on Gerd Mittring's performance at the Menthal Calculation tournament (which he won for the umpteenth time; second place went to John Lane, by the way), but they also reported on the awards in other areas, and once I was called aside for a moment as the leader of the all-around competition. Unfortunately, the Germans' English was as bad as my German - almost the only sentence I could construct was Mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht - and it's hardly worth looking for me on TV anywhere. As mentioned, in the overall standings, I'm still in the lead, but David Pearce's chances are considered better. The current ranking is as follows: I'm followed by two former world champions David Pearce and Tim Hebbes, Ankush Khadelwal is in fourth, American Etan Ilfeld is in fifth, reigning champion Martyn Hamer is in sixth, and two more former champions Dario De Toffoli and Alain Dekker. Spaniard Paco Garcia is currently only 10th, but Pearce and I considered him to be the main favorites for silver and bronze.

Alfred`s Wyke ended unsuccessfully, as expected. Although this event was only scheduled for the second time, some players had learned the tricks so well that they failed to reach a medal place. The short time control certainly played a part, which I know does not suit me - most of the games were wasted. I still managed to get a slightly above average place, but it was of no use. The fact that the tournament was closed by last year's champion Martyn Hamer and David Pearce and Tim Hebbes are currently fighting for the first place in Acquire, which is in its final stages. Pearce's rapid rise will probably not be stopped - he still has 3 grandmaster titles ahead of him - but I still hope to fight for a medal. In that case, I guess I should rather hope for the misfortune of my competitors, since I don't seem to be getting any extra points.

When you went there, I didn't think you could fight for medals, it's the World Championships after all. But the results are impressive, whether you end up with medals or not. An excitingly written review, I almost had to be late for breakfast at the hotel this morning reading it! Good luck in the future, keep drinking, as the poker win showed, you can get points from completely unexpected places. AND another option is to try to participate in the areas where the main competitors are, and by playing against them, try to take some points away from them. Wind.

Ranking after yesterday (before today's dismal results). Name, points (worst qualifying result) 1. Andres Kuusk, 466.86 (81.818) 2. David Pearce, 396.94 (69.841) 3. Tim Hebbes, 388.05 (61.338) 4. Martyn Hamer, 374.93 (44.4445) 5. Ankush Khandelwal, 370.36 (41.667) 6. Etan Ilfeld, 365.79 (54.545) 7. Dario De Toffoli, 360.49 (53.846) 8. Alain Dekker, 360.24 (55) 9. Francisco "Paco" Garcia, 354.47 (50) 10. Matthew Hathrell, 352.73 (50) ... 16. Tiit Vunk, 263.82 (15.625) With today's Acquire win, Tim Hebbes gains 90 points and rises to 417. Reigning champion Martin Hamer, who won Alfred's Wyke, adds 88.1 points and reaches 419. So things are turning quite sour. Tiidu's 16th place is of course a bit of a disappointment, but he still surpasses his current 18th place in the Sudoku World Championship.