Wang Hao and Kosteniuk rapid winners at World Mind Games
At the Sport Accord World Mind Games, which currently take place in Beijing, China Wang Hao won the rapid tournament in the men's section and Alexandra Kosteniuk in the women's section. The chess part of the World Mind Games continues after the weekend with blitz and blindfold tournaments.
Wang Hao receives the first prize with Vugar Gashimov (left) and Gata Kamsky (right) next to him | All photos © FIDE for the official website
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The World Mind Games were held for the first time in 2008. Originally, it consisted of five 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, being organized SportAccord, the umbrella organization for both Olympic and non-Olympic sports as well as a major organizers of conferences and sporting events. This came with a higher prize fund as well (a US $11,000 first prize in the men's section) and thus attracted a larger number of top players.
The opening ceremony on Thursday night, December 8th
The top seeds in the men's event are Sergey Karjakin, Vassily Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Vugar Gashimov, Shakhryar Mamedyarov and Gata Kamsky although in fact all the participants are over 2700. The Women’s event has reigning World Champion Hou Yifan, who recently successfully defended her title in Tirana, Albania. Apart from her big names include Anna Muzychuk, Nana Dzagnidze, Kateryna Lahno, Viktorija Cmilyte, Antoaneta Stefanova and Alexandra Kosteniuk.
9th – 11th December, the players competed for medals in a rapid tournament and eventually Wang Hao and Alexandra Kosteniuk became the winners.
The playing hall in Beijing, China
The Chinese grandmaster was in fantastic shape: he started with 4/4 against Almasi, Ponomariov, Mamedyarov and Grischuk before losing his first game to Gashimov. With a black win against Karjakin and a last-round draw against Kamsky, Wang Hao finished half a point clear of the field.
Alexandra Kosteniuk has dropped somewhat in the FIDE rating list recently, but last weekend she showed that, especially when in good shape and at faster time controls, she is still one of the best female chess players. An undefeated 6/7 yielded the former World Champion the gold medal.
The medal winners in the women's event: Kateryna Lahno (2nd), Alexandra Kosteniuk (1st) and Nana Dzagnidze (3rd)
On December 12-13 there will be a blitz tournament (again separately for men and women). Then, 13th-16th of December the players will compete in a blindfold event so all in all this event is comparable to the Amber tournaments that unfortunately ceased to exist.
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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