Abalone is a two-player abstract strategy board game designed by Michel Lalet and Laurent Lévi in 1987. Players are represented by opposing black and white marbles on a hexagonal board with the objective of pushing six of the opponent's marbles off the edge of the board.
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 Computer Olympiad is a multi-games event in which computer programs compete against each other. For many games, the Computer Olympiads are an opportunity to claim the "world's best computer player" title. First contested in 1989, the majority of the games are board games but other games such as bridge take place as well. In 2010, several puzzles were included in the competition.
Raymond Dennis Keene is an English chess grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author. 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 Englishman to be awarded the Grandmaster title, and he was the second British chess player to beat an incumbent World Chess Champion. He represented England in eight Chess Olympiads.
Jaan Ehlvest is an Estonian-American chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1987. Ehlvest was Estonian champion in 1986. Since 2006, he has represented the United States.
An abstract strategy game is a type of strategy game that has minimal or no narrative theme, an outcome determined only by player choice, and in which each player has perfect information about the game. For example, Go is a pure abstract strategy game since it fulfills all three criteria; chess and related games are nearly so but feature a recognizable theme of ancient warfare; and Stratego is borderline since it is deterministic, loosely based on 19th-century Napoleonic warfare, and features concealed information.
Kateryna Aleksandrovna Lagno is a Russian chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, she earned the title Woman Grandmaster (WGM) at the age of 12 years, four months and two days. In 2007, she was awarded the grandmaster title.
The 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 equalled that of the highest funded event at the first MSO sponsored by Skandia. However, the other events were spread over multiple playing sessions whereas the Decamentathlon was held over just a single session. This event was initially hailed as the MSO flagship event. Although, the Mind Sports Olympiad's other new event the Pentamind has since become regarded as the more significant event despite not having a fixed format.
Almira Skripchenko is a Moldovan-French chess player who holds the titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She won the European Women's Individual Chess Championship in 2001, and is a seven-time French Women's Chess Champion.
Yannick Pelletier is a Swiss chess Grandmaster and a six-time Swiss Champion currently living in Luxembourg.
The World Team Olympiad was a contract bridge meet organized by the World Bridge Federation every four years from 1960 to 2004. Its main events were world championships for national teams, always including one open and one restricted to women. A parallel event for seniors was inaugurated in 2000.
China is a major chess power, with the women's team winning silver medals at the Olympiad in 2010, 2012, and 2014; the men's team winning gold at the 2014 Olympiad, and the average rating for the country's top ten players third in the FIDE rankings as of April 2023.
The World Junior Teams Championship is a bridge competition for zonal teams of players up to about 25 years old.
The World Amateur Chess Championship is a tournament organised by FIDE and Amateur Chess Organisation (ACO).
The Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) is an annual international multi-disciplined competition and festival for games of mental skill and mind sports by Mind Sports Organisation. The inaugural event was held in 1997 in London with £100,000 prize fund and was described as possibly the biggest games festival ever held.
The first World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) 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 Sport.
Regina Theissl Pokorná is a Slovak-Austrian chess player holding the title Woman Grandmaster (WGM).
Eva Moser was an Austrian chess player. She was awarded the titles International Master (IM), in 2004, and Woman Grandmaster (WGM), in 2003, by FIDE. Moser won both the absolute and women's Austrian chess championships. She competed in the Women's World Chess Championship in 2008.
Ali Farahat is an Egyptian and American chess player who received the FIDE title of International Master (IM) in 2005. He won the Egyptian chess championship in 2014. Since April 2019, he plays for the United States Chess Federation.