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The Mind Sports Olympiad, traditionally held in late August in London, was neither canceled nor postponed, like many other events, but was hosted online. The zero entry fee is just the icing on the cake of this 24th year. The program contains a lot of games that I know and that I like, but tournaments in them are rarer than spices. Of course, I can't miss this event. I look at the calendar and choose what I attend. Under normal circumstances, when played in one week, it can be really difficult to choose, but now it's possible to compete all August, so I have a minimum of collisions.
Most of my tournaments will take place on one server, where a mininum 100 points rating is required to register for the tournament. And it is also recommended to get a premium membership. After the first games, I find that 3-4 wins are enough for those 100 points, the rating at values less than 100 does not fall after the loss, and the advertisement for membership before the game is quite delaying things. After studying terms of membership, I find that I can very easily get it for free. Just win once in 20 games. After all, I'm a multi-player and there are a lot of games I know, so a few days are enough for me to do it.
I start by competing in creative thinking. I receive the assignment by email on Friday at 9 pm and I have 24 hours to send it, due to Saturday's family celebration, my time is reduced to about 12 and thanks work duties for about 8 hours (how much of it I can spend by sleeping does not need to be mentioned). On Saturday, I also miss the tournament in Othello, but you can't have everything. Questions last year were great, what would you do with 23 odd socks and why are there actually 23, yeah so on this topic I would probably write a novel and not just allowed 500 words. But the questions this year are not so bad. What would you do with all because of the epidemic unused cars and planes? I am a practitioner, I find quite a few answers, hopefully at least some will be unique to get some points. Another plot for Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia), a proposal for anything that would make time more pleasant at the time of the lockdown. What the Creator should improve, if he could form our world again? Well, I wrote something for each question, but no brilliant ideas coming to my mind - well, I just don't have my day. Even so, I deserved about 31st place out of 49. I am not the last, so the first credit in my private Tournament of ten is at home. (Tournament of ten - participate in 10 events and do not end up on last place in at least 7 of them). And no one protested against my English! I have to continue two days later with the Intelligence Challenge, but it is postponed for a week due to technical difficulties.
I am not very good at the Go 9x9 tournament, but I am not the last, so another credit. A few days off and then comes the tournament weekend. Tournament in Quoridor. The result is not much either, but when the masters figuratively beat you, you leave (unlike a street fight) enriched with a lot of tactical-strategical ideas. And the highlight of the week, the Entropy tournament, at the end combined with participation in Quiz. I have not played entropy since I was at MSO in person, so I am far, far from the medal places again (but I am not the last). What about Quiz? Well, just do it try answering questions from the history, geography, or filmmaking of English-speaking countries. 8x8 questions, each set has something in common. No, this is not for me, but those few tips I did, it brings me 5 and a half points and the penultimate place. What a surprise, another credit to my Tournament of ten.
And we move on. The postponed intelligence competition seems quite simple to me, that is, except for examples such as a train with a length of 110 yards, it enters a tunnel 550 yards long at a speed of 55 miles per hour, in how many seconds will its end come out of the tunnel. It probably takes me longer than the native British person, but I calculated the right result. There will definitely be someone who can't solve so many tasks correctly. Another credit. Tournament in Zertz. It is played on a server programmed many years ago by one regular MSO participant. I can't beat a robot there, but I am able to beat the players. 3 points out of 5, sixth place out of 16 participants, handcuffs of points for pentamind and another credit. Oware - our balls. 70 people. Great tournament, and even live commented. I end up around 30th place. Well, it could have been better, but I am satisfied with the result, of course. Oskar also played! And of course the Kazakhs, even though they had a deep night. Just my eye check the next day probably won't get the best results after playing at night.
The highlight of the whole program, there is a gambling tournament. Game Can’t stop. The luck has its part here. We roll four dice here. When it falls, it falls, and when it doesn't, it doesn't. I do not love Ludo game, but this is a pretty statistically based game. And the probability of winning in it interests me dangerously. So I'll make small analysis and then verify its results in practice. It works pretty well. The number of people in the tournament is limited to 256. Everyone plays. Without the limit, there would be even more. During verification, of course, the strategy sometimes works and sometimes fails, but I enter the tournament with a fairly decent rating. In the first rounds, I get players relatively much stronger, but luck is on my side and I win. I win the first, second, and third round. My nickname settled in the first place in the results table. I am not as lucky in the fourth round. But most of all I have huge luck in the last rounds. So 7 out of 10. Among 256 participants, it brings up 24th place. Great! Mainly, it means a lot of points to pentamind. This is a competition for versatility. Points from this tournaments, Zertz, Oware and Intelligence, and one of the less successful tournaments ranks me among the top five women of this year. Since I appeared on the list, I've been among the top 100. Wow. Just now 58th place. Of the tournaments where I could still score, there is another one, Quarto. But half the people there (including me) don't know we're playing variant 2x2. The tournament will be counted, but a second tournament will be held. And it is also said that it will be counted, even if it is not normally possible to get points for the same game. So we'll see. Well, even with those losses from the beginning due to the additional rule, I'm not doing badly and I finish in the middle. This means another small shift in pentamind ladder. I don't play for my Tournament of ten anymore, I have already fullfilled its condition, I already have a higher goal. The best placement among women in Pentamind. 7/62, damn, some of the ladies got in front of me, but as soon as they count that Quarto, maybe I'll probably be fifth again. Although who knows what they will count to others.
The second Quarto is scheduled for Monday night, so the second Tuesday morning eye control will be tragic again. On Monday, I experience a software bug for the first time. Fortunately, only in the last round. I report it to both the server programmers and the MSO command tent. We played one normal game with my opponent right after the tournament, which is counted instead of our game in tournament. So I have 4 points from the tournament and I'm 8/73 in pentamind. I'm going to sleep because of that an hour later, but the eye check next day is fine. Wednesday, Lines of Action. I'm learning this game a week before the tournament. I do not expect extra results. My very first game in my life is awarded by my opponent as very good. 3 points out of 7 is great. Last two events remains Hex on large board (14x14) and Abalone. These are not my strong disciplines, so I can only hope to stay in first ten / hundred. Can I train a new game in two days? 18 entrants and the fact that it has not been on the live program in recent years sounds promising, but the rating of entrants is high, It doesn't look like much of a chance to finish in the first half. But the game looks very interesting and my favorite motto is that one learns the most about the game by playing a tournament. So I'm in it. Now just get four wins quickly and a rating of 100. I won't play without it, even though the MSO rules allow it. I do not succeed until a few hours before the tournament. So to the list of events I participated, I can write the fifteenth cross for the Circle of Life. In the end, 16th place out of 27. For other points in pentamind, I need to finish in the first half, so this is definitely the case which will not move me up in ladder, but 8/78 - hopefully I stay around this till the end. I am not going to play regular Saturday's Oware again, due to Hex, but the announcement of Sunday's Toguz promises a super high turnout. Toguz is at 1 p.m. Abalone at 4:30 pm, so I should be able to play both. It will be exhausting, but this is the last time I can really play. Getting 5 of 9 in Toguz with almost 50 players and 4 of 7 in Abalone with 56 players. I should get some points for pentamind where I am 10/80 before Abalone and also I should jump up in Modern Abstract Games Championship, where I am 16th.
Last events appeared in result table. I did not get any medal, but being 10/79 in Pentamind and 18th in Abstract "Pentamind" I find great success, knowing how good some players are, with generaly no training and between many thousands of participants. MSO had 11000 registrations, 9000 active entries into events, 5884 unique participants, 228 those, who played 5 or more events, 102 of those, who played 10 or more events. With my 15 disciplines, I am one of the most crazy participants, I am wondering, how many disciplines was maximum :-) Well, it was great month, let it happen again.