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33-682: The Mind Sports Organisation (MSO) is an association for promoting mind sports including Contract Bridge , Chess , Go , Mastermind , and Scrabble . Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad . The MSO was founded in conjunction with the first Mind Sports Olympiad. Beside the main event, always in England and usually in London, it has supported similar events elsewhere, including Milan ; South Korea , and Prague . The first Mind Sports Olympiad

66-702: A "stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of Olympic Games (after the Summer and the Winter Olympics)". with the aim to be held alongside the Summer Olympic Games every 4 years. The first WMSG was held in Beijing 2008 to coincide with Olympic host city; the 2012 WMSG was held in Lille, France. Mind sport A mind sport is a game of skill based on intellectual ability . The first major use of

99-411: A result of specific outside sponsorship for that discipline. Notable games include (most other refs mention some of these): The well-known: Chess, Bridge, Draughts, Shogi , Backgammon , Chinese Chess (Xiang-Qi) , Othello , Poker , Cribbage , Mastermind And many newer games like: Abalone , Boku , Continuo , Entropy , Kamisado , Lines of Action (LOA) , Pacru , Twixt At MSO tournaments,

132-656: Is not possible to rotate into a meeting. Meetings are hard to achieve, and games are likely to have none. In tournament play (see below), no benefit is gained by a meeting if the opponent has 8 or fewer markers on the board. There are three win conditions in Pacru: The game has been included at the annual Mind Sports Olympiad or at a World Championship event hosted by the inventor (Mike Wellman). The World Championships have been won multiple times by Pentamind champions Alain Dekker, David M. Pearce and Martyn Hamer . Time controls for

165-406: Is said to be "under attack". Attack is mutual if both players' pieces attack each other. In order to capture, however, the player must have two (or move) pieces attacking the same enemy piece. It is not sufficient to capture with only one attacking piece. Capturing, as in chess, is by replacement. Move one of the attacking pieces onto the opponents' field, remove the enemy piece and place a marker on

198-447: Is the number of players and p is the player's position in an event. The position is the position before tie-breaks and any split positions are shared amongst all of the tied players. When there are fewer than 10 players in a tournament, the score is multiplied by a secondary factor [p / (p + 1)]. This event has been won five times by Demis Hassabis . When the MSO was initially formed in 1997,

231-426: Is unoccupied, or which has a marker of their own colour. The exception is during piece capture (see Capturing below). When a piece crosses a border, a marker must be placed on any empty field in the borderland area to which the piece has moved. Markers may be placed on unoccupied fields only. All pieces are always able to move at least one square. If the borderland in which the piece starts its move has N markers of

264-517: The Decamentathlon is a composite event in which players compete in ten separate mind sports . The following mental skills have always been part of the Decamentathlon: memory skills , mental calculation , IQ , chess , Go , othello , 8 by 8 draughts , and creative thinking . MSO also organizes Mental Calculation World Championship separately. The remaining two mental skills have changed over

297-567: The Mental Calculation World Cup (held bi-annually since 2004) and the World Memory Championships (held annually since 1991). As well as board and card games , other disciplines that have been described as mind sports are speed reading , competitive programming , and cybersecurity wargames . Other events that have been included where the physical element is comparable to the mental component such as when

330-650: The World Mind Sports Games in Beijing 2008 for contract bridge , chess , go , draughts and xiangqi many other bodies have lobbied for inclusion such as the International Federation of Poker , which won provisional membership at the annual congress of SportAccord in Dubai in 2009. The term also includes mental calculation or memory disciplines as presented in International competitions such as

363-464: The 2011 Mind Sports Olympiad. The Mind Sports Olympiad main event has been annual since 1997 at the following locations in England: The MSO consists mainly of single event competitions most of which are for the nominal title of Olympiad champion, though some trademarked games are authorised by the game designer and publishers as the official world championships . All games, whether an Olympiad or

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396-705: The MSO saw a revival returning to a central London venue, the Royal Horticultural Halls , Westminster and again on 21–31 August 2009. The 2010 event was held at the Soho Theatre in London. In 2011, the Mind Sports Olympiad moved to a bigger venue, the University of London Union. The 16th MSO will take place once again at the University of London Union in 18–27 August 2012. Over the last few years, MSO has been flourishing both at its satellite events and at

429-537: The Mind Sports Olympiad name. These have occurred in Cambridge , England; Singapore ; Seoul , South Korea ; Milan , Italy ; Oulu , Finland ; and Prague , The Czech Republic . Several other mind sports events and festivals have been held that have their roots in the original organisation. The World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) was created by the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) as

462-405: The area to which the piece moved (for the border crossing). It is not possible to get both benefits. When a piece crosses a border and moves into a new borderland, a marker must be placed on any unoccupied (i.e. empty) field. Later in the game, some borderland areas may be completely filled with markers with no empty fields. When this happens, the player must replace any of the opponents' markers in

495-400: The area with their own, returning the marker to their opponent. If the area is already completely filled with markers of their own colour, the player receives no benefit. If any field is empty but occupied by a piece, then the area is not completely filled and no marker may be placed on this field. When a piece is able to move onto the field occupied by one of the opponents' pieces, the piece

528-460: The board running it included David Levy , Tony Buzan , and Raymond Keene , David Levy being the original founder of the MSO concept. The current (2012) board consists of David Levy, Tony Corfe and Etan Ilfeld . The Mind Sports Olympiad is run by MSO Limited, which is registered in the UK with company number 04712990, and was incorporated in 2003. Several satellite events were held around the world bearing

561-452: The board with the eventual goal of dominating the board. A field with neither a piece or marker on it is called "unoccupied". Pieces in Pacru point in a particular direction. When they move, they may move straight ahead or forty-five degrees to the left or right of the direction the piece is facing. The piece ends the move pointing in the direction of movement. Pieces may only land on a field that

594-442: The decamentathlon's fixed format (see separate article) the pentamind has very little fixed format. It disallows using games that are considered too similar and normally requires a long event, but otherwise any five events from the schedule could be used. The Pentamind champion is the player with the highest numerical score in "pentamind points" from 5 valid events. This is calculated using the formula 100 x (n - p) / (n - 1), where n

627-422: The field, replacing an opponents' marker (if any). Note that a marker on the attacked field does not protect the enemy piece. If the attacking piece also crosses a border, a marker is also placed in the area to which the piece has moved. When a piece has no legal moves it is "blocked". This happens when: Pieces may become unblocked by the actions of other pieces, but can also be unblocked by "rotation". To rotate,

660-452: The main event in London, which attracted almost 800 entries in 2011. MSO London is a truly global event, and the 2010 Pentamind World Champion Paco Garcia De La Banda hails from Spain, while the 2011 Pentamind World Champion Andres Kuusk is from Estonia. The most widely read chess magazine in the world, Chess Life, featured an article in February 2012 about in the inauguration of Diving Chess into

693-515: The multi-event games in athletics of the modern pentathlon and the decathlon . This was part of the ambition to create an Olympics of the mind. The Mind Sports Olympiad returned to London with sponsorship in both 1998 and 1999. Despite a falling out between the organisers (see controversy below) a successful event was held in Alexandra Palace the next year in 2000. The Mind Sports Olympiad main event continued to happen but without sponsorship

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726-484: The official Mind Sports South Africa accepted speed- texting as a mind sport. Pacru Pacru is played on a 9x9 grid where each point in the grid is called a "field". The grid is divided into nine borderlands, each consisting of nine fields. Pieces are called "chevrons" in the official rules. Each player starts with 3 pieces (in the 3- or 4-player version) or 4 pieces (in the 2-player version). During play, each player will attempt to place markers of their colour on

759-482: The official World championship, can count towards the Pentamind. Medals, and more recently trophies, are awarded for gold, silver and bronze positions in each competition as well as ranks, with similar awards for the top juniors in each event. In early Olympiads sponsorship allowed for generous financial prizes to go with many of the events. In recent years such prizes have been limited to a small number of events, usually as

792-418: The player rotates their piece forty-five (one rotation) or ninety (two rotations) either left or right. When they do this, the player removes 2 markers (45-degree rotation) or 4 markers (ninety degree rotation) as the cost for rotation. Markers may be taken from unoccupied fields only and can be anywhere on the board. Note that rotation is the players full turn i.e. the player does not get a rotation and move in

825-466: The players' colour, then the piece may move up to N squares. As an example, say the Red player has a piece on e1 (using chess algebraic notation) and the borderland area has four Red markers in it. Their piece may move to any of the following squares: Moves are always in straight lines. It is not allowed to change direction during long moves. Pieces may not jump over other pieces (irrespective of colour) except if

858-553: The same obligation to mental agility as we do to physical agility. Mind sports have to form UK national bodies and get together with the government to devise an acceptable amendment to the 1937 Act that clearly differentiates mind sports from parlour board games. Many of the games' official bodies which had come together for the Mind Sports Olympiad , formed larger organisations such as the Mind Sports Council and International Mind Sports Association (IMSA). With IMSA organising

891-480: The same turn. A "meeting" occurs when a piece moves such that at the end of the move (including placement of any markers) the following conditions are met: When a meeting occurs, the player gets a special meeting bonus which is to place one of their markers anywhere on the board, provided the field is unoccupied. The field may have a marker of their opponents' colour, in which case the replaced marker should be returned to your opponent. Meetings are by movement only. It

924-405: The start and end fields already have a marker of their own colour (see Connections below). As in the previous section, if the piece crosses a border with a long-range jump, a marker is placed in the area to which the piece has moved. A jump from a marker of their own colour to another marker of their own colour is called a "connection". When this happens, the player must fill in the fields between

957-427: The start and end fields with their own colour. This may involve replacing markers of another player (these markers should be returned to the opponent). The exception is if the moves jumps over another piece (friendly or not), when there is no benefit. If a piece makes both a long-range connection jump and also crosses a border, the player must choose between filling in the fields (for the jump) or getting one marker in

990-590: The term was as a result of the Mind Sports Olympiad in 1997. The phrase had been used prior to this event such as backgammon being described as a mind sport by Tony Buzan in 1996; Tony Buzan was also a co-founder of the Mind Sports Olympiad. Bodies such as the World Memory Sports Council use the term retrospectively. It is a term that became fixed from games trying to obtain equal status to sports. For example, from 2002 British Minister for Sport , Richard Caborn said: ...I believe we should have

1023-461: The tournaments were held at a number of different universities. The event was still going strong for the years 2001 - 2006. The main 2004 event featured a separate event for schools, featuring competitions and activities in chess, Go, quizzes and intelligence puzzles. But in 2007 the Mind Sports Olympiad was reduced to a much smaller venue in Potters Bar due to no sponsorship and no advertising. In 2008

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1056-528: The years and come from this list: contract bridge , Backgammon , Mastermind , and most recently Sudoku . The MSO introduced the Abstract Games world championship in 2008. This was one of the Mind Sports Olympiad's original events. It was an attempt along with the decamentathlon to produce an event for all-rounders to parallel the Olympic Games with its events the decamentathlon and pentathlon. Unlike

1089-483: Was held in London's Royal Festival Hall in 1997. It brought together an unprecedented number of strategy games and events. William Hartston in The Independent said, "The biggest gamesfest ever to hit these (or perhaps any other) shores". The inaugural MSO along with a very large number of games, introduced two new events of their own creation the Pentamind and the Decamentathlon . These were two events to parallel

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