Mind Sports Organisation
Encyclopedia
The Mind Sports Organisation (MSO) is an association for promoting mental-skill games (Mind Sport
) including Contract Bridge
, Chess
, Go, Mastermind
, and Scrabble
. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England
a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad main event.
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 meets elsewhere, including Milan, Italy; South Korea
, and Prague
, Czech Republic
.
'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 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.
During this time several satellite events were held around the world bearing the Mind Sports Olympiad name. These have occurred in Cambridge
, South Korea
, Milan and Prague
.
The Mind Sports Olympiad main event continued to happen but without sponsorship 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 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 August 18-27, 2012.
. Although all of these games 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 very small number of events, usually as 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, the Decamentathlon is a composite event in which players compete in ten separate mind sport
s: memory skills, mental calculation
, IQ, contract bridge
, chess
, othello
, 8 by 8 draughts
, Go
, Mastermind
, and creative thinking.
The MSO introduced the Abstract Games
world championship in 2008.
to produce an event for all-rounders to parallel the Olympic Games with its events the decamentathlon and pentathlon. Unlike 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. Despite its free choice of events where competitors use results from different events to each other, it became regarded as the mark of the best games
all-rounder in the world.
The Pentamind champion is the player with the best score in "pentamind points" from 5 valid events.
This is calculated using pentamind points 100 x (n - p) / (n - 1). Where n 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.
Although players can use different results they still have the opportunity to play against their competitors in all of the events so can still influence the outcome using events other than their main 5 by reducing their opponents pentamind points.
, and Raymond Keene
, David Levy being the original founder of the MSO concept.
A worsening financial position caused difficulties for MSOW, and schemes to become a leading force in games promotion worldwide came to little, as the invested money (exactly £1,000,000) was spent. This was the era of failed dot coms, and MSOW went into voluntary liquidation in May 2001. At that point David Levy was the most important figure left in MSOW, Tony Buzan
having withdrawn, and Ray Keene having acrimoniously split from the board early in 2000 . Keene was more interested in promoting high-profile events — he has been close to Garry Kasparov
— and he left to organise the 2000 world chess championship between Kasparov and Kramnik .
A more serious incident arose at the end of the 3rd MSO, which caused a public falling-out amongst the original organisers. And this led to open criticism being made of Raymond Keene by his brother-in-law David Levy and financial collapse.
There had been a decline in numbers in many events due to no sponsorship and no advertising that resulted in several events having very small fields in 2007 combined with being held in a small venue. 2008 saw a slight revival with the event returning to a central London venue. The number of participants have continued to increase in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
.
:Category:Mind sports competitions
Mind sport
A Mind Sport is a sport or a game of skill where the mentalcomponent is much more significant than the physical. The official bodies that use the term have over 500 million registered users.- History of the term :...
) including Contract Bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
, Chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, Go, Mastermind
Mastermind (board game)
Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert, but the game resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called bulls and cows that may date back a century or...
, and Scrabble
Scrabble
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad main event.
The MSO was founded in conjunction with the first Mind Sports Olympiad. Beside the main event, always in England and usually in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, it has supported similar meets elsewhere, including Milan, Italy; South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, and Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
.
Mind Sports Olympiad
The first Mind Sports Olympiad was held in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in 1997. It brought together an unprecedented number of strategy games and events. William Hartston in 'The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
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
Decamentathlon
Decamentathlon is a multi disciplined games event that was created as part of the first Mind Sports Olympiad. It was founded to try to find the best games all-rounder in the world and hence possibly the best games player. It was given a prize fund of £10,000 for the inaugural competition, that...
. These were two events to parallel the multi-event games in athletics of the modern pentathlon
Modern pentathlon
The modern pentathlon is a sports contest that includes five events: pistol shooting, épée fencing, 200 m freestyle swimming, show jumping, and a 3 km cross-country run...
and the decathlon
Decathlon
The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word decathlon is of Greek origin . Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not...
. 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
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
the next year in 2000.
During this time several satellite events were held around the world bearing the Mind Sports Olympiad name. These have occurred in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Milan and Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
.
The Mind Sports Olympiad main event continued to happen but without sponsorship 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 the MSO saw a revival returning to a central London venue, The Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
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 August 18-27, 2012.
Venues
The Mind Sports Olympiad main event has been annual since 1997 at the following locations in England:- 1997 Royal Festival Hall, London
- 1998 Novotel Hotel, HammersmithHammersmithHammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
- 1999 Kennsington Olympia, London
- 2000 Alexandra Palace, London
- 2001 South Bank University, London
- 2002 Loughborough UniversityLoughborough UniversityLoughborough University is a research based campus university located in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, in the East Midlands of England...
, LoughboroughLoughboroughLoughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University... - 2003 Manchester University, ManchesterManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
- 2004 Manchester University, Manchester
- 2005 Manchester University, Manchester
- 2006 Westminster UniversityWestminster UniversityWestminster University may refer to:*University of Westminster, London, England* Westminster University , whose building is listed on the U.S. NRHP...
,London - 2007 Potters Bar
- 2008 Royal Horticultural Halls, London
- 2009 Royal Horticultural Halls, London
- 2010 Soho Theatre, London
- 2011 University of London Union, London.
Games at the MSO
The MSO consists mainly of single event competitions in the above and other disciplines. Most of these are for the nominal title Olympiad champion, though some trademarked games are authorised by the game designer and publishers as the official world championshipsWorld championship
A world championship is the top achievement for any sport or contest. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best nation, team, individual in the world in a particular field. Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead...
. Although all of these games 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 very small number of events, usually as 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
Shogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a two-player board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, and Chinese Xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan...
, Backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
, Chinese Chess (Xiang-Qi), Othello
Reversi
Reversi is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player...
, Poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
, Cribbage
Cribbage
Cribbage, or crib, is a card game traditionally for two players, but commonly played with three, four or more, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points...
, Mastermind
Mastermind (board game)
Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert, but the game resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called bulls and cows that may date back a century or...
And many newer games like:
Abalone
Abalone (board game)
Abalone is an award winning two-player strategy board game designed by Michel Lalet and Laurent Levi in which each player is represented by marbles of opposing colors...
, Boku
Boku
Boku may refer to:*The Cuban name for the Ashiko, a type of drum*Boku , a juice carton drink.*Bōku, a board game.*BOKU, the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, in Austria....
, Continuo
Continuo (game)
Continuo is an abstract strategy game by Maureen Hiron first published in 1982. It is played by arranging patterns printed on a deck of 42 cards, each card being printed with a grid of 16 colored squares. The goal is to place cards so that the tiles match as many chains of color as possible....
, Entropy
Entropy (board game)
There are at least two board games known under the name Entropy. Both are two-player abstract strategic games played on square boards.- Eric Solomon's Entropy :Eric Solomon's game was invented and published in 1977...
, Kamisado
Kamisado
Kamisado is an abstract strategy board game for two players that's played on an 8x8 multicoloured board. Each player controls a set of eight octagonal dragon tower pieces. Each player’s set of dragon towers contains a tower to match each of the colours that appear on the squares of the board...
, Lines of Action (LOA)
Lines of Action
Lines of Action is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Claude Soucie. The objective of the game is to connect all of your pieces...
, Pacru, Twixt
TwixT
TwixT is a two-player abstract strategy game invented by Alex Randolph. It is a member of the connection game family, along with games such as Hex, Havannah, Y, PÜNCT and *Star...
At MSO tournaments, the Decamentathlon is a composite event in which players compete in ten separate mind sport
Mind sport
A Mind Sport is a sport or a game of skill where the mentalcomponent is much more significant than the physical. The official bodies that use the term have over 500 million registered users.- History of the term :...
s: memory skills, mental calculation
Mental calculation
Mental calculation comprises arithmetical calculations using only the human brain, with no help from calculators, computers, or pen and paper. People use mental calculation when computing tools are not available, when it is faster than other means of calculation , or in a competition context...
, IQ, contract bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
, chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, othello
Reversi
Reversi is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player...
, 8 by 8 draughts
Draughts
Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. Draughts developed from alquerque...
, Go
Go (board game)
Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
, Mastermind
Mastermind (board game)
Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert, but the game resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called bulls and cows that may date back a century or...
, and creative thinking.
The MSO introduced the Abstract Games
Abstract strategy game
An abstract strategy game is a strategy game, aiming to minimise luck, and without a theme. Almost all abstract strategy games will conform to the strictest definition of: a board or card game, in which there is no hidden information, no non-deterministic elements , in which two players or teams...
world championship in 2008.
Pentamind
This was one of the Mind Sports Olympiad's original events. It was an attempt along with the decamentathlonDecamentathlon
Decamentathlon is a multi disciplined games event that was created as part of the first Mind Sports Olympiad. It was founded to try to find the best games all-rounder in the world and hence possibly the best games player. It was given a prize fund of £10,000 for the inaugural competition, that...
to produce an event for all-rounders to parallel the Olympic Games with its events the decamentathlon and pentathlon. Unlike 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. Despite its free choice of events where competitors use results from different events to each other, it became regarded as the mark of the best games
all-rounder in the world.
The Pentamind champion is the player with the best score in "pentamind points" from 5 valid events.
This is calculated using pentamind points 100 x (n - p) / (n - 1). Where n 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.
Although players can use different results they still have the opportunity to play against their competitors in all of the events so can still influence the outcome using events other than their main 5 by reducing their opponents pentamind points.
Structure of the Organisation
Initially the MSO was supported by some substantial corporate sponsorship, and was under the control of a company MSO Worldwide (MSOW), which had money advanced by venture capitalists (the money came mostly from Swedish sources). The second Mind Sports Olympiad saw the largest sponsor withdraw, and from that time onwards financial problems dogged the MSO . The board running it included David Levy, Tony BuzanTony Buzan
Anthony "Tony" Peter Buzan is an author and educational consultant. He is a proponent of the techniques of Mind Mapping and mental literacy. He claims to have worked with "corporate entities and businesses all over the world; academics; Olympic athletes; children of all ages; governments; and...
, and Raymond Keene
Raymond Keene
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...
, David Levy being the original founder of the MSO concept.
A worsening financial position caused difficulties for MSOW, and schemes to become a leading force in games promotion worldwide came to little, as the invested money (exactly £1,000,000) was spent. This was the era of failed dot coms, and MSOW went into voluntary liquidation in May 2001. At that point David Levy was the most important figure left in MSOW, Tony Buzan
Tony Buzan
Anthony "Tony" Peter Buzan is an author and educational consultant. He is a proponent of the techniques of Mind Mapping and mental literacy. He claims to have worked with "corporate entities and businesses all over the world; academics; Olympic athletes; children of all ages; governments; and...
having withdrawn, and Ray Keene having acrimoniously split from the board early in 2000 . Keene was more interested in promoting high-profile events — he has been close to Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
— and he left to organise the 2000 world chess championship between Kasparov and Kramnik .
Controversy about the MSO main event
There have been some commentators question the standard of events when first appearing at the Mind Sports Olympiad when considered in conjunction with the title that is awarded to the winner. An example of this was with the inaugural Amateur World Poker Championships in 1998 when the event was described as like a beginner's tournament. However, this was before internet poker was common place and many all-rounders were not playing due to timetable conflicts.A more serious incident arose at the end of the 3rd MSO, which caused a public falling-out amongst the original organisers. And this led to open criticism being made of Raymond Keene by his brother-in-law David Levy and financial collapse.
There had been a decline in numbers in many events due to no sponsorship and no advertising that resulted in several events having very small fields in 2007 combined with being held in a small venue. 2008 saw a slight revival with the event returning to a central London venue. The number of participants have continued to increase in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Pentamind World Champions
This event has been won five times by Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis
Demis Hassabis is a computer game designer, AI programmer, neuroscientist and world-class games player. A child prodigy in chess, he reached master standard at the age of 13 with an Elo rating of 2300...
.
- 1997: Kenneth J. Wilshire (Wales)
- 1998: Demis Hassabis (England)
- 1999: Demis Hassabis (England)
- 2000: Demis Hassabis (England)
- 2001: Demis Hassabis (England)
- 2002:
Dario De ToffoliDario De ToffoliDario De Toffoli is an Italian board game designer, gamebook author and elite games player who founded the games company Studiogiochi and established many games events. Born in 1953 Venice, after an early career as Chemist he entered the world of games. Winner of over 60 medals at the Mind Sports...
(Italy) - 2003: Demis Hassabis (England)
- 2004: Alain S. Dekker (South Africa)
- 2005: Tim Hebbes (England)
- 2006:
Jan Stastna (Czech Republic) - 2007: David M. Pearce (England)
- 2008: David M. Pearce (England)
- 2009: Martyn Hamer (England)
- 2010: Paco Garcia De La Banda (Spain)
- 2011: Andres Kuusk (Estonia)
See also
- World Mind Sports GamesWorld Mind Sports GamesThe first World Mind Sports Games were held in Beijing, China from October 3 to 18, 2008, about two months after the Olympic Games. They were sponsored and organised by the International Mind Sports Association with the General Administration of Sport of China and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of...
- List of all-rounders in games of skill
- List of world championships in mind sports
:Category:Mind sports competitions
External links
- MSO official website (old, expired)
- MSO official website (new)
- Forum thread which provides a link to 2009 info
- World Mind Sports Games — early document by the International Mind Sports Association (no date?)