MSO was first held in 1997, at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank from August 18–24. After the first five events it moved out of London experiencing some difficult years, the nadir of which was 2007 when it was held in a church hall at Potters Bar, but in 2014 it found what appears to be its permanent home, this year being the sixth in a row it had been held at the JW3 centre in North London. Turn outs have been improving slowly.
The man who started it all, David Levy, was absent this year. Co-founder Tony Buzan died in April, while Tony Corfe who has run the event every year since its inception was holidaying in Africa, so it was left to Etan Ilfeld to head a small but dedicated team. California native Etan entered MSO in the 2008 event at the Royal Horticultural Halls; he came to play and stayed to pray, so to speak. As well as organising and playing since 2010, he came up with the novel event of diving chess, which is held off-site. Another player turned organiser is Josef Kollar, who picked up his first medal way back in 1998.
The 2015 event was overshadowed by the tragic death of chess player Michael Uriely, who was just 9 years old. 2015 also saw the introduction of a learn new games room for competitors, which while of little use to chess or bridge players served to introduce people to especially new games, some of which have actually been around for a while. There was no bridge this year due to technical difficulties, but there was what was called a chess bonanza, including variants. Whether it was the prize money or the prestige, the chess events attracted a particularly strong field. The one-time retired grandmaster Matthew Sadler and Russian expatriate Alexander Cherniaev both picked up gold medals as did Natasha Regan, who at one time seemed to have given up chess for the ancient Chinese game, go.
By Tuesday, veteran David Pearce had claimed his fiftieth gold medal in MSO tournaments, but the big event this year as ever was the Pentamind. Over the years, this has been dominated by individuals. Ken Wilshire won the inaugural tournament followed by Demis Hassabis who won it four times in a row then again in 2003. Italian gamester Dario De Toffoli won in 2002 then again in 2012, an impressive jump. The aforementioned David Pearce won in 2007 & 2008 while chess player Ankush Khandelwal and Andres Kuusk of Estonia shared the 2013 trophy. The following year, Andres won outright, and again in 2016. Last year, Ankush — who has been playing MSO since he was at school — won outright, and this year defended the trophy with Andres runner up and another Estonian player, Martin Hobermagi, winning the bronze.
The Mind Sports Olympiad has two websites: the official site and Boardability. It has also long had a presence on Facebook, and has been live streaming on YouTube since last year. A documentary specifically on the Pentamind has recently been released.
Although it has not achieved the heady success hoped by David Levy when it was launched, the Mind Sports concept is now worldwide. Events have been held as far afield as South Korea, which especially saw the 2017 Braining Games and MSO World-Korea Championships. There have also been large contingents of Korean players at the UK events.
[The above article was published originally on Medium, September 2, 2019].
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