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Welcome to SportAccord World Mind Games!
Sunday, 04 December 2011
sportaccord.jpgWhat do we already know about the World Mind Games? It was held for the 1-st time in 2008. Originally, it consisted of 5 disciplines:  chess, bridge, draughts (checkers), go, and xiangqi (Chinese chess). In that year thirty-five gold medals were contested by 2,763 competitors from 143 countries.

This year the World Mind Games has moved to a new level.  Now they are being organized and held by a famous and respectable organization called SportAccord. SportAccord is the umbrella organization for both Olympic and non-Olympic sports as well as a major organizers of conferences and sporting events.

Another difference between these games and the ones held in the past is in the elite selection of invited participants. Now this is not a festival, but a show for the best of the best  with – what’s important -solid cash prizes. 11000 USD will be presented for each winner of every men’s chess competition and 8000 USD for the winner of the female events. Undoubtedly, we can expect stern competition and competitive matches in every game.

All the participants are very famous and respectable.  The top seeds in the men are Sergey Karyakin, Vasiliy Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Vugar Gashimov, Shakhryar Mamedyarov and Gata Kamsky although all the participants are over 2700. At the head of the Women’s event  is How Yifan, who recently successfully defended her title of World champion in Tirana, Albania. Apart from her, there will be other players trying to compete with the very best namely– Anna Muzychuk, Nana Dzagnidze, Katerina Lahno, Viktorija Cmilyte, and of course former World Champions Antoanetta Stefanova, and Alexandra Kosteniuk. It is also worth mentioning, Stefanova and Kosteniuk were the winners of the 1-st Mind Games in 2009 – in blitz and rapid  respectively. During that time How Yifan became a champion in Mixed Pairs Rapid – with her compatriot Ni Hua.

We are waiting for a fantastic week of exciting events. 9th – 11th December, 8 men and 8 women will compete for medals in rapid. December 12-13 will be a blitz tournament, round robin format - separately, again, for men and women. Then 13th-16th of December the players will compete in the ultimate Mind Games, blindfold chess games. So, welcome to see our transmission, news and pictures on our website.

We hope you enjoy them.

We will try to make them as exciting as the action itself.
 
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