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Welcome to SportAccord World Mind Games! |
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Sunday, 04 December 2011 |
 What 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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