World Mindset Championship 2011

Preparing for this morning's abalone took quite a while. It still feels like I drank a lot of cider and stayed up half the night. That's probably because I did drink a lot of cider and stayed up half the night. After poker, we went to celebrate the title win with Kertu, David Pearce, Ankush Khandelwal, Michael Dixon and Matthew Hatrell. That meant lots of alcohol and even more board games - we played acquire, bridge and settlers. We didn't get home until seven o'clock Estonian time. Whether it was because of the celebration or something else, nothing very good came of the abalone, but 3rd-4th place among 10 participants isn't the worst. Second place in the abstract games category should be plenty enough. I'm skipping the poker that's starting soon and going out into the city - I haven't had time for that yet. The awards ceremony will be at 6:30 PM local time, so you can all stand up at home and sing the national anthem. Before that, Kertu might have time to write a poker review.

The first hand of poker ended faster than I would have dared to think. On the third hand, I got A10 from the suit, the board already had A10 from the flop. I checked and bet. Anna played against me, who was playing her first games in Texas hold'em. I have to sadly report that my A10 was no better than her current AA. So she had a set of three and I didn't get a 10 on the river. I won the second hand against Etan. I guess fortune finally came to see my game, because I also won the third hand against Dixon. I had to go all-in twice to make him empty of his money. Finally, it worked. And what else, if not with my favorite K7! The fourth hand against Dario. And I managed to achieve a draw at the end of the game! Unbelievable. When they said stop, count your money, we already had blinds at the table. We played until the end, where I won with my bluff of 200 and had the same number of chips as when I started the game! Let's go to the last game. Andrew Havery sat down with the same score (2 and a half). I was lucky to beat him when I hit 9 on the flop, he had a pair of deuces. Two more queens came on the board, but I had the higher pairs. So great. The points will be counted soon, so we'll see what happened. Andres went shopping. I'm considering whether to go to the Notting Hill Carnival right away, or only in the evening. It feels good and happy that Andres won. You can come visit me at the same time tomorrow, to see the medal. More important news - it started raining in the morning as soon as I stepped out the door; last night I broke a nail; I got pizza for breakfast (yay!); Pearce accompanied Andres and me to the bridge yesterday and made sure that we still knew where to go. Today is the last day to play some great games. Many people have their suitcases with them at the competition venue and will be leaving immediately after the ceremony. We still have to figure out how and with what we can get on the plane.

I felt a bit sad while writing this title. It's a real shame that a good thing has to come to an end. In fact, the last session is still going on, go players, diplomats and poker aces are still at work. In poker, Bharat Thakrar and Kertu's favorite Hong Kong young man Ken Ho are currently leading the way, and they are now meeting each other. In the previous round, I also witnessed a couple of nice pieces - I saw one royal flush and two draws. One of those draws was made by Kertu, and it was against Dario de Toffoli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dario_De_Toffoli) himself. At the moment, Kertu is in full competition with three wins, one draw and only one loss. My competitions have ended happily. During the last session, I went souvenir hunting in the city. I had barely reached the part of the city that was richer in souvenir shops when a shop called Punase Bussi (Red Bus) looked at me. I was happy to bring along something other than a traditional English tea wrapped in a red bus-shaped package. Although the need for souvenirs was quickly resolved, I still decided to visit Oxford Street, perhaps I could find something more exciting there. Barely 10 meters further, there was already the next souvenir shop, which I entered for comparison. Of course, it turned out that they sold exactly the same stuff, but a third cheaper. I didn't find or buy anything exciting on Oxford Street, but on the way there I saw the bronze Freddy Mercury towering in front of Tominion. The poker game had just ended. Kertu made the last opponent empty of money and finished, guess what, in fourth place of course. The fourth-place norm prescribed by Tiitu was almost met. Bharat Thakrar won ahead of Kenneth Ho and David Jameson. The awards ceremony will start soon. Maybe another summary post or two in the evening.

Congratulations from me too!! It seems that the relations are already much warmer than last year. Last year we were more like strangers there, this year we already have our own people. Kertu also definitely made a lot of friends - of course congratulations to her on the medal, it finally came. If you had come on the plane to Tallinn after Othello, you wouldn't have gotten it. So let me know in advance that since there is a celebration here and where - I would still like to see the medals and other things with my own eyes. But mainly I hope that this visit and these posts here will motivate many to participate next year. In a few years maybe we will be able to put together a group to go there (three is a group). Last year certainly wasn't the last for me either. I would still like to try again sometime - I have to put together a plan of the best players and try to achieve the maximum possible. See you in Estonia!!

I've known for a long time that Andres is the best in the world. Reading these interesting reviews makes me want to try my hand at it myself someday, but I guess I'm too old for that level :(

Congratulations, Andres! So glad that an Estonian, and such a likeable Estonian at that, is the best in the world. And once again it has been proven that any sport is a very engaging activity. I have to admit that I was here to tweet at least every half hour - when it was clear that there could be no entries from the participants, I was hoping that maybe there would be some relevant comments from other knowledgeable followers. I don't know Kertu personally, but nevertheless, Kertu's medal caused almost as much emotion as Andres' great victory. There was such an Olympic feeling - the successful performance of one's own is a great shared joy. And of course, it is also a particularly proud feeling to add to my CV that I am a student of a world champion. :) Happy new academic year to everyone!

Congratulations to both champions from me too. In your honor, I taught the delegates of the European Ornithological Society conference in Riga to play Hare and Tortoise. It was very successful, although no one else achieved more than second place in any of the games except me. That's what it means to train with a world champion!

As promised, a boku in honor of Andres is now also on the Tallinn Open schedule: http://www.vint.ee/yrituse-detailid/?event=147

And that's all. It was a great feeling to receive the proud trophy in front of the cameras at the closing ceremony. I also had to share my first post-victory emotions. I probably stuttered a bit, but I still managed to express great satisfaction and joy. By the way, the film crew also showed a couple of interesting shots of me - I've thought that I wouldn't have any nerves moving in any competition for years, but the film clearly showed me, right before the lines of action, pacing back and forth around the hall extremely nervously. After the closing ceremony, the organizing team invited me to dinner together, and it was not polite to refuse. At this point, I must again be grateful to Karmen, who has trained me well in etiquette for such festive occasions. Over the steak and wine, I thought it was the right moment and mentioned that with the addition of gomoku, there would be more people coming from Estonia. Then they asked if I could guarantee it and if I stood my ground, they allowed me to take the matter seriously. The medal race ended with some surprise when defending champion Paco couldn't even win the go and ended up in fourth place. The medal spots were taken by former champion Tim Hebbes with a strong finish and the hope of the future Ankush Khandelwal, who only competed in the junior category a couple of years ago. Dario de Toffoli and Tige Nnando, who were leading at the beginning, practically didn't earn any extra points in the second half of the competition and were far from medals. 11 competitors managed to collect 400 points or more, who were ranked as follows: 1. Andres Kuusk, Estonia 2. Ankush Khandelwal, India/Great Britain 3. Tim Hebbes, Great Britain 4. Paco Garcia, Spain 5. Martyn Hamer, Great Britain 6. Alain Dekker, South Africa 7. David Pearce, Great Britain 8. Dario de Toffoli, Italy 9. Matthew Hattrell, Great Britain 10. Michael Dixon, Great Britain 11. David Jameson, Great Britain Kertu's exact place is not known, but considering his strong finish, he could easily have made it into the top twenty. There were participants from 30 countries in total, including one each from Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Canada and Guernsey. London will finish, see you in Estonia. PS. To Antsule: unfortunately, it is logistically difficult to organize a ride through Karepa, but if we still have to come, we will warn you in advance. PPS. Thanks to all the thumbs up holders, whose support was decisive in a difficult situation. The comments of Tuule, Pihla, Aliisi, Tiidu and others were extremely empowering and nice to read. And special thanks of course to Karmen for her understanding attitude when developing the boku theory and trying to set a personal record in entropy tended to become more important to me than the problems of everyday life. Also to Sipsik for her tolerance when I sometimes got a little annoyed that she was taking my lines of action buttons apart. PPPS. I also found the infamous blue bottle with syrupy contents in the corner of the closet. But in my opinion, it was not "Lemon" written on it as Kertu claimed, but "Fairy".

I'll comment here. Congratulations! Unfortunately, I didn't follow more after the first negative posts, but I read everything from the back. Almost as good. Very enjoyable.