Mind Sports Pentathlon World Championships 2016

Who will be participating? I wouldn't want to predict the top three names who aren't there. Maybe you'll throw in a list of participants here.

I also have a win-win, either you get a good place or I get a beer :)

As expected, nothing good came of Settlers. Before the last round I shared 4 more places, but in the end I was about 8. The game was not bad and I didn't make any special mistakes, but in terms of trading there are obvious shortcomings compared to the top players. The winner was the Portuguese Ricardo Gomes, who can now realistically claim a medal. Ankush started well as expected with a score of nearly 95 points, so I can already smell the ice cream. James Heppell failed, so the defending champion is already behind last year's miracle schedule.

Unfortunately, the first day did not bring good results, but that was to be expected. I played very badly in poker and that explains why I am writing today's report so early. But at least it was fun, even exceeded expectations in Settlers. So tomorrow I will try again, this time with the expansion (cities and knights). Of the competitors, the defending champion James Heppell had a bad day, who did not even get an equal result with me. The same applies to David Jameson, but his areas were not there today either. In addition to a good score from Settlers, Ankush also has a promising position in the evening session. For those interested in betting on ice cream, all the usual suspects are present: (ex) world champions James Heppell, Ankush Khandelwal, Dario de Toffoli, Tim Hebbes, David Pierce, Alain Dekker, last year's bronze medalist David Jameson and other favorites Matthew Hattrell, Mike Dixon and Ricardo Gomez. Paco is also there, but as a coach, not a competitor. The seven-member Spanish team he coaches is unlikely to produce any medals this year. Currently, with some sections of the third session still ongoing, American Etan Ilfeld is leading the way according to the official standings with 159.68 points.

For some reason, I've had a good feeling about this year's tournament from the beginning, and today confirmed it. As an introduction to yesterday, Ankush got 90 points in Dominion and was therefore the biggest winner of the first day. But now about today. I decided to change my mind at the last minute and move from Catan to chess, because it turned out that in the Cities&Knights version of Catan, only first place gets useful points, and that would be a lot to hope for even with good luck. There were a lot of people in chess and you could get 90 points for 3rd place. So I was hoping for good luck in the draw, which can sometimes be quite important in a 6-round tournament, so that maybe I could manage to snatch third place after two grandmasters. Since several FMs were also participating and I had 10th place, it didn't seem realistic of course. After a relatively easy match in the first round, I was able to play with a grandmaster in the second. Unfortunately, the only way out of the opening was with a quality battle, and zero came quickly. In the third round, the opponent was a bit easier again, but then things started to happen. In the fourth round, the ming was completely overplayed and I had to sacrifice first a pawn and then quality, and as a result, I was at a big disadvantage on the chess clock. Somehow, however, I managed to confuse the situation with battles and soon my opponent was also playing in the last seconds. At some point, he took a few seconds and calculated a certain path to checkmate ... unfortunately, he made a move a second too late. In the penultimate round, I played a good game for a change. With white, I pressured the young Spanish hope, who had defeated Ankush a couple of rounds ago, consistently until the endgame and there I ironed out a better, but drawn, position into a Carlsen-style point. For the decisive match with the English FM, I got white again and decided to avoid the opening. Unfortunately, things went wrong after the first 10 moves, I lost a pawn and fought to not give up the second. Then, apparently fed up with me still not giving up, my opponent decided to make a nice winning combination - a rustling rook, then a flag, to collect everything with interest. It so happened that this was exactly what I had built my last hope on, there was no need to take the flag, although it seemed mandatory at first glance. Instead, I offered my flag as a passage, which gave the necessary pace. After all this fireworks, I unexpectedly had a rook for two pawns, which I realized as a point. So I got 5 points out of 6, when I should have gotten 2.5 to 3 and would have paid off in 3rd place. Even better, for the overall score it was even a 1st-3rd place tie (tie-breaks are not counted), which gives a sweet 93 points. It was the happiest chess tournament of my life by a long way. where I was lucky both with my opponents and in the games. The high level of the tournament is evidenced by the fact that the grandmasters scored 5 and 4.5 points out of 6, respectively, without meeting each other, and Ankush finished with 3.5 points. Considering the previously set schedule, it was a great bonus that will definitely increase the medal chances. The whole point of the whole story, however, is that the whole idea of playing Settlers of Catan instead of chess was that if you're lucky, you can get a lot of luck, while in chess it shouldn't be possible. But it was. The official standings before today's second session gave me 15th place, from there I'm now moving up considerably. The top five in the standings were as follows: 1) James Heppell (won cribbage in the morning), 2) David Pearce, 3) Ankush (he was the real leader, as there were only 2 areas in the table), 4) Paul Smith, 5) Matt Hathrell.

I can assure you that chess form and the result achieved are often inversely proportional... :-)

As you might expect, I used up all my luck in the chess tournament and it didn't work out in poker. I got the money in London Lowball while leading and lost 8643A vs 8642A. At least it was fun. It seems that I'm not going to come out on top in poker this year, I've played both tournaments poorly so far. Omaha is really the last chance, as Holdem overlaps with continuo. The overall standings are exciting, James Heppell is only 1 point ahead of Ricardo Gomes, Paul Smith is third. David Pierce, Alain Dekker and Ankush Khandelwal follow. Live standings (not always live) can be found at http://www.msoworld.com/2016-live-pentamind-standings/ Tomorrow I'll probably rest the first 2 sessions or try abalone for fun in the morning if the lineup is favorable.

A look at the live standings shows that Ankush is already well ahead of everyone, beating Etan Ilfeld in third place by 34 points. Ankush already has three 90-point results in two days and seems to be going at the pace of last year's Heppell. I am currently holding 18th position and there is no particular hope of climbing much further from there today. My strong days are primarily 4th-6th, where I hope to step on the heels of the top three.

Pakun 1. Ankush 2. Andres 3. David Pierce.

Ha ha ha, I just got a nice ego boost. I ended up at the same breakfast table as the Spanish junior team and in addition to the big group photo, everyone wanted a separate selfie. According to official statistics, there are 12 juniors in the Spanish team, but it seemed more like 24 or 36. I suspect the Spaniards did 2-3 laps so that everyone could get more than 1 photo :P You might think that if every morning was like this, it would be pretty boring, but right now it was rather awesome anyway. It's funny how people have an irresistible desire to feel important. Since this year's TiimAndresPentamind2016Medal also includes a top evolutionary biologist from the University of Arizona, I at least know who to ask about it. PS. The two-member Spanish team is accompanied by a cameraman, whose footage can be viewed, for example, on Ricardo Gomes' Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ricardojorgegomes.boardgames?hc_ref=NEWSFEED Among other things, there is good Catan learning material from the table where three experts came together and I had to be the poor fourth, an outsider.