Mind Sports Olympiad 2013

The Mind Sports Olympiad for 2013 will be held in London between the dates Aug 17th to 26th inclusive. The venue will be the University of London Union, London, United Kingdom.

The website is http://www.msoworld.com/ where you can find a link to the newsletter if you are interested.

This years' tournament includes many games played at Little Golem, including:
\* The official World Championships of Lines of Action
\* The official British championships of Chess960 (sometimes called Fischer Random)
\* Several other chess tournaments
\* Twixt
\* Shogi (Chinese Chess / Xiangqi is also played)
\* Othello (Reversi)

There are also tournaments in Backgammon, Poker, Pacru, Entropy and many other games. Spectating all games if free and spectators are also welcome to try any game (equipment and space permitting) or to form impromptu mini-tournaments on the side (provided these do not interfere with the normal tournament schedule).

Check it out at http://www.msoworld.com/.

It sounds like a lot of fun :) if it had more of my favorite games like Dots and Boxes, Breakthrough and Hex, I would be more inclined to go though. Twixt would be fun but I am simply too bad at it.

Dominion is a very nice inclusion though.

As you can imagine, it is impossible to get the "perfect" balance of game selection for everyone! There are too many fantastic games and personal favourite's out there. I'd suggest:

(a) come along if you can, its' a great event and you'll make some new friends and learn some new games
(b) email the main organiser, Etan Ilfeld, with your suggestions. His email is ilfeld gmail [dot] com. The physical game must be readily available (ie. can be bought easily and not too expensively or use existing equipment) and there should ideally be a "champion" for the game (I don't mean the best player, just someone who can explain why its'a good game, show the rules, etc and who would be willing to help run at least the initial tournament).

I gave Dominion a quick try last year and also thought it was good :o)

There is a little known gem played at MSO which is possibly the "Game of the MSO", Entropy. It can be tried online at SuperDuperGames.org. Not sure of anywhere else.

BTW, I neglected to mention that Polyominoes (as played here at LG) is also played at the MSO under the trademark name "Blokus". Not sure what, if any, specific differences there are between the two games.

Hope to see some of you at MSO! My name is Alain Dekker from South Africa.

Sorry, Etan's email should be ilfeld gmail [dot] com.

Ooh, that is not coming out right. Its leaving out the "AT" or "@" symbol between ilfeld and gmail.

Sure, I understand, and of course I don't blame the tournament for not having those games :)

Blokus and polyominoes should be exactly the same by the way.

Blokus for two players uses 4 colors, i.e. it's regular 4-color Blokus with Red and Blue controlled by one player, and Yellow and Green controlled by the other player. At least in the online literature I've found, e.g. blokusstrategy.com.