Type | Mind sports |
---|---|
Founded | 1997 |
Founder | David Levy, Tony Buzan, Raymond Keene et al. |
Headquarters | London , England |
Key people | Etan Ilfeld (Event Coordinator), David Levy (Chief Architect), Tony Corfe (Event Manager), David Pearce (webmaster) |
Products | Mind Sports Olympiad |
Website | www |
The Mind Sports Organisation (MSO) is an association for promoting mind sports including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad.
The MSO was founded in conjunction with the first Mind Sports Olympiad. Beside the main event, always in England and usually in London, it has supported similar events elsewhere, including Milan; South Korea,[1] and Prague.[2]
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Transcription
When we look at Olympic sport, sport at the highest level, there are clearly some athletes who always seem to get it right. For example, Usain Bolt: Olympic 100m, 200m champion, twice over, in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and in the London Olympics. Michael Phelps: the most bemedaled Olympian of all time. These are athletes who clearly get it right, both psychologically and physiologically all of the time. It is also interesting to note that they have contrasting approaches. Usain Bolt, with all his comedy antics, prior to his event, when he is on the start line. We've all seen this. (Laughter) Michael Phelps, however, a much different approach. He sits down, he is listening to music, he has much more cerebral, contemplative approach towards his event. But it's both very effective. Sport psychology may play a part in their preparation for their events, and maybe a reason why they're successful. What happens when things go wrong? Here's another example. In the 2012 Olympics in London in the soccer final, there were two finalists, Brazil and Mexico. Brazil were the undoubted favorites. They were expected to win. They were the reigning Olympic champions. They were extremely skilled, on paper, they were the best team. Mexico had made it to the final playing well, but they were unfancied. In the final, Mexico went at Brazil in an incredible display of attacking football. It was incredibly impressive to watch. And if you watched the Brazilian players, their heads dropped. They seemed slightly defeated. They could not understand why they were not performing quite as well as they were. Perhaps they were complacent. Perhaps they'd expected too much. Perhaps they were overconfident. The Mexicans had nothing to lose, they attacked with fervor and they won the Olympic title, they were the Olympic champions over the fancy favorites. Perhaps sport psychology can explain why fancied champions may be over-confident and may fail when they're expected to win, and perhaps why underdogs take on the best and win despite all the odds. Take another example. James Magnussen: a man with seemingly unshakable self-confidence. He said he was going to win the 100m-sprint final in the pool at the London Olympics. He was extremely confident. But in that race, he was out-touched in the line by Nathan Adrian, by 1/100 of a second. And that was devastating for him, you could see his body language after, he was destroyed. Perhaps he was over-confident. Perhaps though, his obvious confidence in the events leading up to the actual final. Perhaps his confidence belied an undelying self low confidence. Perhaps he was not very confident inside when he should have been supremely confident of his abilities because he was the world leader in the event. So perhaps psychology may have played a part, but in particular, it may help when overcoming such a devastating defeat for the next event. Another very good example: Roy McAvoy. In the 2011 Augusta masters, he was expected to win, he was amongst the favorites certainly, and he's an extremely talented golfer. In fact, he is the one player that all the people on the tour, all the golfers on the tour, the PGA tour, fear the most. And yet on the day, when he was leading, on the final day of the event he was leading by four shots. He'd played superbly on the previous three days. He experienced a catastrophic drop in his performance. He shot a round of 80, and this is something that professional golfers can do in their sleep, certainly very easily, because they frequently shoot rounds of 70 or below and that's a good shot. So 80 was a catastrophic failure, and he ended up tying for fifteenth place. So you'd think that that sort of devastating performance may have impacted on his mind. However, only eight weeks later, he won the U.S open, and there was no sign of the lack of confidence and the fact that the pressure had got to him, that was displayed when he was in Augusta. So it seemed that he picked up the pieces. And what is it that made him do so? Sport psychology may indeed have the answers. So, elite athletes, coaches, and the people who surround athletes, know very well the importance of sport psychology, and they're beginning to embrace it. Sport psychologists are often included in the teams that surround athletes nowadays. What is sport psychology? Well, it is the science, study and practice of mental preparation for sport. It involves identifying the techniques and strategies that athletes can take and use, so they perform on their most optimum. It also helps athletes deal with come back, with setbacks and help them to come back from devastating defeats. Such as those by James Magnussen or Roy McAvoy. So we just begin to unpack some of these strategies that sport psychologists talk about. So looking inside of the mind of a winner, what factors are linked to success in sport? Well, clearly an athlete has to be motivated. Often goals that athletes set, describe or... will demonstrate how much effort and how much will they have to win in their event. But sometimes motivation is not enough. An athlete has to be confident, and confidence seems to be ubiquitous amongst high-performing performers. There's a number of strategies that athletes can use to boost their confidence. Another important factor is knowledge of the sport. So basically, knowing your sport inside out, but also knowing the opposition. What are their strengths and weaknesses? One of the phrases coined by Clive Woodward, who was the England coach at the time they won the Rugby World Cup in 2003. One of the phrases he coined, was, "Total rugby, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to performance." He was very famous for developing dossiers on the opposition. Knowing their strengths, knowing their weaknesses and where he could attack them and how he could tactically win them. And that's clearly important in sports these days. So, using psychology to understand the opposition as well as yourself. Athletes are also very good at using routines, getting themselves in the right frame of mind. We'll look at that in a few moments time. Athletes are also good at handling pressure. If you look at Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps, they are cases in point. And anxiety management is clearly an important aspect of an athlete's arsenal of strategies to get them in the right frame of mind so that they can perform at their best. So let's look at some of these strategies in detail. Motivation is clearly very important, and how do you get athlete motivated? The most important things are the goals that they set. The goals that they set will determine how much drive, how much effort, how much will they have to perform well. But often a goal of winning is not enough. Sometimes, oh, most times, it is important that an athlete has a number of sub-goals which are related to their performance. So things like personal bests, that drive them both in training and in competition. It's important that these goals conform to certain features. And scientists, psychologists and practitioners always refer to this SMART- acronym. And that's because, having goals that are realistic, relevant, specific, measurable and so forth, are really important when it comes to getting an athlete motivated. As I said earlier, motivation is not enough. It is important that an athlete is confident, and there are number of ways you can boost an athlete's self-confidence. Experience. Reminding an athlete of their experience is extremely important. Modeling. I don't mean catwalk-modeling here, modeling is also an important aspect, because that enables an athlete to have a model or blueprint if you like of the optimum performance. Imagery and self-talk are parts of that and we'll get on to those in a moment. Feedback is clearly important as well. Positive feedback from the athlete's coaches. Imagery is a mental rehearsal and it is a strategy that many athletes use. And here are the kinds of things that an athlete or a coach will go through, when they're rehearsing their performance. It is almost like a video of their performance. They will also use prompts, but they also visualize any contingency that arise. For example, any barriers or problems or difficulties that arise during the course of their competition. Here's an example of these kinds of strategies in action. This is Blanka Vlašić: she was a former world champion, high jumper, and YWF athlete of the year. And she was very famous for going through the same performance routine prior to a competition. She would close her eyes, visualize a successful jump. She would clap her hands rhythmically, and use the audience to get the audience on board and that would both boost her motivation and her confidence, and then she would practice some moves shortly before executing her jump. Self-talk is another strategy that athletes use. It's an extremely important strategy because it enables athletes to go through in their mind and use mantras to try to boost their motivation, but also to try to manage the competition and the situation. For example, the situation where the pressure is on and they are highly anxious. So, self-talk might have motivational components, but it also might help athletes focus on important things that are relevant to performance, so-called cues, and also might have a calming effect. Things like breathe and relax. Anxiety management is an important aspect of sport performance. Clearly at the Olympic Game the World Championships at the highest level, athletes are going to be under pressure and they need to be able to cope with that pressure. Sometimes being too anxious can actually undermine an athlete performance. It can be sub-optimal. So relaxation techniques are extremely important in this regard, and psychologists will work with athletes to try and help them to relax. So it might involve things like breathing, stretching, relaxing the muscles, they'll also use things like music and meditation. Michael Phelps is a good example, he listens to music right up to the few minutes before is an event, and that music will get him to the right frame of mind for that event. It will help him to relax but it will also motivate him. Here's a good example of somebody using those techniques to the greatest extent. This is Yelena Isinbayeva: double Olympic champion at the pole vault, and also the world record holder. This is her in the 2012 Olympics, she's clearly very relaxed, she lies back, she covers herself in a close, this has the effect of shutting out any distractions but also it has the effect of relaxing her and relieving the pressure. So in term of the mind of a winner from a sport psychology perspective, an athlete has to be motivated, confident in their abilities, manage pressure extremely well, and use these well trained-drilled techniques like imagery, self-talk and relaxation. Thank you. (Applause)
Mind Sports Olympiad
The first Mind Sports Olympiad was held in London's Royal Festival Hall in 1997. It brought together an unprecedented number of strategy games and events. William Hartston in The Independent said, "The biggest gamesfest ever to hit these (or perhaps any other) shores".[3]
The inaugural MSO along with a very large number of games, introduced two new events of their own creation the Pentamind and the Decamentathlon. These were two events to parallel the multi-event games in athletics of the modern pentathlon and the decathlon. This was part of the ambition to create an Olympics of the mind.[4]
The Mind Sports Olympiad returned to London with sponsorship in both 1998[5] and 1999.[6] Despite a falling out between the organisers (see controversy below) a successful event was held in Alexandra Palace the next year in 2000.[7]
The Mind Sports Olympiad main event continued to happen but without sponsorship the tournaments were held at a number of different universities. The event was still going strong for the years 2001 - 2006.[8] The main 2004 event featured a separate event for schools, featuring competitions and activities in chess, Go, quizzes and intelligence puzzles. But in 2007 the Mind Sports Olympiad was reduced to a much smaller venue in Potters Bar due to no sponsorship and no advertising.[9] In 2008 the MSO saw a revival returning to a central London venue, the Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster and again on 21–31 August 2009.[10] The 2010 event was held at the Soho Theatre in London.[11] In 2011, the Mind Sports Olympiad moved to a bigger venue, the University of London Union. The 16th MSO will take place once again at the University of London Union in 18–27 August 2012.
Over the last few years, MSO has been flourishing both at its satellite events and at the main event in London, which attracted almost 800 entries in 2011. MSO London is a truly global event, and the 2010 Pentamind World Champion Paco Garcia De La Banda hails from Spain, while the 2011 Pentamind World Champion Andres Kuusk is from Estonia.[12] The most widely read chess magazine in the world, Chess Life, featured an article in February 2012 about in the inauguration of Diving Chess into the 2011 Mind Sports Olympiad.[13]
Venues
The Mind Sports Olympiad main event has been annual since 1997 at the following locations in England:
- 1997 Royal Festival Hall, London[4]
- 1998 Novotel Hotel, Hammersmith[14]
- 1999 Kensington Olympia, London[15]
- 2000 Alexandra Palace, London[7]
- 2001 South Bank University, London
- 2002 Loughborough University, Loughborough
- 2003 Manchester University, Manchester[16]
- 2004 Manchester University, Manchester[17]
- 2005 Manchester University, Manchester[18]
- 2006 Westminster University, London
- 2007 Potters Bar[9]
- 2008 Royal Horticultural Halls, London
- 2009 Royal Horticultural Halls, London[19]
- 2010 Soho Theatre, London[20]
- 2011 University of London Union, London.[21]
- 2012 University of London Union, London.[22]
- 2013 University of London Union, London
- 2014 JW3, London
Games at the MSO
The MSO consists mainly of single event competitions most of which are for the nominal title of Olympiad champion, though some trademarked games are authorised by the game designer and publishers as the official world championships. All games, whether an Olympiad or the official World championship, can count towards the Pentamind. Medals, and more recently trophies, are awarded for gold, silver and bronze positions in each competition as well as ranks, with similar awards for the top juniors in each event. In early Olympiads sponsorship allowed for generous financial prizes to go with many of the events. In recent years such prizes have been limited to a small number of events, usually as a result of specific outside sponsorship for that discipline.
Notable games include (most other refs mention some of these):[23] The well-known: Chess, Bridge, Draughts, Shogi, Backgammon, Chinese Chess (Xiang-Qi), Othello, Poker, Cribbage, Mastermind
And many newer games like: Abalone, Boku, Continuo, Entropy, Kamisado,[24] Lines of Action (LOA), Pacru,[25] Twixt
At MSO tournaments, the Decamentathlon is a composite event in which players compete in ten separate mind sports. The following mental skills have always been part of the Decamentathlon: memory skills, mental calculation, IQ, chess, Go, othello, 8 by 8 draughts, and creative thinking. MSO also organizes Mental Calculation World Championship separately. The remaining two mental skills have changed over the years and come from this list: contract bridge, Backgammon, Mastermind, and most recently Sudoku.
The MSO introduced the Abstract Games world championship in 2008.[26]
Pentamind
This was one of the Mind Sports Olympiad's original events.[4] It was an attempt along with the decamentathlon to produce an event for all-rounders to parallel the Olympic Games with its events the decamentathlon and pentathlon. Unlike the decamentathlon's fixed format (see separate article) the pentamind has very little fixed format. It disallows using games that are considered too similar and normally requires a long event, but otherwise any five events from the schedule could be used.
The Pentamind champion is the player with the highest numerical score in "pentamind points" from 5 valid events. This is calculated using the formula 100 x (n - p) / (n - 1), where n is the number of players and p is the player's position in an event.[8] The position is the position before tie-breaks and any split positions are shared amongst all of the tied players. When there are fewer than 10 players in a tournament, the score is multiplied by a secondary factor [p / (p + 1)].
Pentamind World Champions
This event has been won five times by Demis Hassabis.[27]
- 1997:
- 1998:
- 1999:
- 2000:
- 2001:
- 2002:
- 2003:
- 2004:
- 2005:
- 2006:
- 2007:
- 2008:
- 2009:
- 2010:
- 2011:
- 2012:
- 2013:
- 2014:
- 2015:
- 2016:
- 2017:
- 2018:
Structure of the Organisation
When the MSO was initially formed in 1997, the board running it included David Levy, Tony Buzan, and Raymond Keene, David Levy being the original founder of the MSO concept. The current (2012) board consists of David Levy, Tony Corfe and Etan Ilfeld. The Mind Sports Olympiad is run by MSO Limited, which is registered in the UK with company number 04712990, and was incorporated in 2003.[32]
Satellite Mind Sports Olympiads
Several satellite events were held around the world bearing the Mind Sports Olympiad name. These have occurred in Cambridge, England;[33] Singapore;[34] Seoul, South Korea;[35] Milan, Italy;[36] Oulu, Finland;[37] and Prague, The Czech Republic.[38]
Other Mind Sports Events
Several other mind sports events and festivals have been held that have their roots in the original organisation.
World Mind Sports Games
The World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) was created by the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) as a "stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of Olympic Games (after the Summer and the Winter Olympics)".[39] with the aim to be held alongside the Summer Olympic Games every 4 years. The first WMSG was held in Beijing 2008 to coincide with Olympic host city; the 2012 WMSG was held in Lille, France.
Sport Accord World Mind Games
See also
- World Mind Sports Games
- List of all-rounders in games of skill
- List of world championships in mind sports
References
- ^ MSO Korean Contest Will Be Held on 22 July, Korea JoongAng Daily, 14 July 1999, [1]. Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ Looking forward to the Mind Sports Olympiad, Radio Prague, Jan Velinger, 17 September 2006 [2]. Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ William Hartston, The South Bank Brain Show, The Independent 21 June 1997, retrieved 2 August 1997
- ^ a b c The Mind Sports Olympiad Supplement s, The Times, July - August 1997
- ^ Robert Sheehan, Sheehan on Bridge, The Times, 20 October 1998
- ^ Alan Hiron, Games: Bridge, The Independent, 5 December 1999, retrieved 2 August 2009
- ^ a b Paul Sussman, Fierce rivalry in 'Olympics' for brainboxes Archived 28 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine 24 August 2000
- ^ a b David Ward, Cerebral Athletes Play Mind Games, [The Guardian], 22 August 2005, retrieved 2 August 2009
- ^ a b Stephen Moss, This time it's Personal, The Guardian, 27 August 2007
- ^ Information about venue for MSO XIII, http://www.boardability.com/mso/venue.html, 2 August 2009
- ^ Account of MSO XIV, http://www.boardability.com/result.php?id=mso14 Archived 26 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine, 15 February 2011
- ^ "Results for mso15". Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
- ^ "February 2012".
- ^ Jon Spielman, Independent Pursuits: Chess, The Independent, 3 September 1998, retrieved 31 July 2009
- ^ Robert Nurden. Mental athletes tune up for Mind Games Archived 25 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine, 22 August 1999, retrieved 2 August 2009
- ^ Manchester Hosts 9th Mind Sports Olympiad, Manchester City Council News, 2 August 2005, retrieved 31 July 2009
- ^ Don's diary:games and gold medals in Mind, The Times Higher Education, David Levy, 17 October 2003, [3]. Retrieved 20 April 2011
- ^ Mind games tournament under way, BBC Manchester, 19 August 2005 [4]. Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ Cheam man's mind bending puzzles at mental olympiad, Sutton Guardian, Kevin Barnesm 28 August 2009 [5]. Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ Scrabble, Monopoly and more at xhul games fest, The Jewish Chronicle, Robyn Rosen, 26 August 2010, [6] Archived 29 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ Venue announcement for MSO XV, http://www.boardability.com/venue.php, 15 February 2011
- ^ Venue announcement for MSO XVI, http://www.boardability.com/, 15 February 2012
- ^ List of games, http://www.boardability.com/games_az.html, retrieved 2 August 2009
- ^ Op-Ed: Mind Sports Olympiad 2011 - with chess diving, Digital Journal, 23 August 2011, Alexander Baron, http://digitaljournal.com/article/310713, retrieved 6 September 2011
- ^ Mike's test for the old grey matter, Manchester Evening News, Patricia Roberts, 8 December 2005 [7] Archived 12 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Article on abstract games world championships, http://www.boardability.com/game.php?abstract_games[permanent dead link], 15 February 2011
- ^ MSO pentamind results, http://www.boardability.com/result.php?id=pentamind Archived 8 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 6 September 2010
- ^ Cerebral athletes play mind games, The Guardian, David Ward, 22 August 2005, [8]. Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ Martyn Minds if he holds onto his crown..., Accrington Observer, Stuart Pike, 20 August 2010, [9] Archived 26 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 30 April 2010
- ^ Un proyecto de emprendeduría infantil de La Palma recibe respaldo internacional, Que Newspaper, 13 September 2010 [10] Archived 11 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ Estonian Mind Athlete Wins World Championship, ERR News ,30 August 2011, Ingrid Teesalu http://news.err.ee/sports/cced719d-60db-4aa9-a795-a8cc02fe202f Retrieved 6 September 2011
- ^ "Failure Page".
- ^ Uganda: Kampala Wins Gold, AllAfrica.com, Norman Katende, 10 May 2002 [11]. Retrieved 16 July 2012
- ^ MSO (Singapore) 2000 opening speech archived by Ministry of Education (Singapore), [12] Archived 26 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 16 July 2012
- ^ MSO Korean Contest Will be Held on 22 July, Korea JoongAng Daily, 14 July 1999 "MSO Korean Contest Will be Held on July 22-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily". Archived from the original on 27 January 2013. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) Retrieved 16 July 2012 - ^ Shogi results for MSO Italy 2000 from shogi.net. Retrieved 16 July 2012
- ^ Mind Sports Festival announcement from chessbanter.com. Retrieved 16 July 2012
- ^ Looking Forward to the Mind Sports Olympiad, Radio Praha, 17 September 2006, Jan Velinger, "Radio Prague - Looking forward to the Mind Sports Olympiad". Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 5 February 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2009
- ^ World Bridge Games Archived 20 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine. World Bridge Federation. Retrieved 2011-05-27.
External links
- MSO official website (new)
- MSO official website (old)
- Forum thread which provides a link to 2009 info
- World Mind Sports Games — early document by the International Mind Sports Association (no date?)