World Mindset Championship 2011

well done!

Latest information from London: Our representative team apparently celebrated their victory with dignity yesterday, as they missed their plane today. So - for those who wanted to go to the airport to greet Andes and Kertu - we are waiting for more information on what time they will actually arrive.

Sõõrumaa, Selid and other money sharks! Ooooh! Isn't it time to open your wallets and support world-class mental athletes?

The fact is that our team traveled there with our own funds. Mind sports are not popular in Estonia, but we are working on this problem :) Andres' achievement is certainly invaluable in popularizing this sport.

Andres and Kertu will arrive at Tallinn Airport today at 19.05. Everyone welcome! Unfortunately, I am 210km away and will not be able to make it. I will welcome them in Tartu... This gives rise to the idea of having a small reception event at the Trehv club some evening. Anyone else interested in Tartu?

If something happens, I'll be there and help with advice and strength if necessary :)

It was an interesting read and gave a fairly good overview of the tournament. I would also like to congratulate Andres and Kertu. I hope that this field will find more popularity in Estonia. In addition, I do not understand why gomoku should be added to the list of fields, not rendzu, the first of which is still a developing mind game while the second one already has quite a few people who are properly engaged in the field. Namely in China. There are also a number of people there who receive a monthly income for good results or for teaching rendzu (unfortunately, I cannot give an exact number, but I think it is somewhere between 50 and 100). This amount is not large, but if you take into account that they are also given a living space, then this is a very good opportunity for someone who wants to dedicate themselves solely to it. Secondly, I don't really see many people who would be interested in taking part in this competition just because of the addition of gomoku (okay, Ants, besides him, maybe Tunnet or Ando would be interested, who already know some other mind games quite well (Tunnet poker and Ando go) and thanks to their talent would also reach a pretty decent level in other areas in a while (both are already quite good at Russian checkers, etc.). I myself would only think about it if rendzu were added and then they would choose the areas they like more and start practicing quietly. In about ten years, they could already have enough confidence that when they go to compete, they wouldn't have to be afraid that they wouldn't be the last :) Also, I don't understand why Estonian multi-sport tournaments have gomoku instead of rendzu. Can anyone tell me a specific reason? When it comes to the complexity of rendzu compared to gomoku, then we are still talking about mental players and learning the follies should not be a big headache. Moreover, if you include rendzu in the game with the old RIF rules, then gomoku is actually more difficult, because anyone who even bothers to prepare an opening in gomoku will simply throw you such a thing on the table that even good players can stare at it for twenty minutes, but still not understand what is happening.

I happened to read a review of the 1997 tournament. It turns out that the prize pool that year was £100,000 (the pound was also better than it is now). For comparison, this year the prize pool was £0. I guess I was about ten years late.

I suggest that becoming world champion was also significantly more difficult.

And perhaps it wasn't even harder. The reigning champion at the time, Demis Hassabis, who won 5 World Championships, is hardly the main favorite now. He has basically given up active mind sports multi-sport competitions, but he still participates in his former trump cards, and relatively unsuccessfully. However, it was much more difficult to accumulate such a good score. The thing is that there were also decent prizes for the winners of each event, which brought the tops of their field to play in just one event. Of course, it was difficult for multi-sport competitors to collect maximum points in the events.