Uniquely, the regular Speed Reading World Championship at the Mind Sports Olympiad has only ever had one winner from the first time it was held in 1997 to the current day. Anne Jones has won every single time we have held the championship. It would be churlish not to credit her with victory last year when the championship was not held; it's just that, Anne being the only entrant, we decided not to hold the contest.

This year, Anne read The Namesake, a yet unpublished novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, past winner of the Pulitzer Prize, which concerns an Indian baby growing up in suburban America. She read all 108,000 or so words of the book in a little over 47 minutes for a raw reading speed of 2,284 wpm. However, we test comprehension as well as raw speed; after taking comprehension into account, her effective score was 1,285 wpm, a little over twice that of second-placed Andrew Havery. This is the second best performance she has recorded in MSO competition behind only her 1,347 effective wpm recorded at MSO 5.

However, Anne may not have it all her own way forever. Back on Monday 21st June, the MSO organised a competition based on the newly-released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix novel, in co-operation with Books etc. here in Manchester. Anne took part along with nine of her students; while Anne read all 255,000 words between midnight and 1:41am, once all ten participants had taken the same comprehension test, it was Anne's pupil Jennifer Gosling from Burleigh College in Loughborough who had come out on top at 1,068 ewpm. It's fitting that a pupil of Anne's looks well-placed to carry on her legacy.

Perhaps Anne is giving away too many of her secrets and teaching people too well! You can find out much more about speed reading and learn the techniques at our Brain Power Academy sessions today and tomorrow.

What's called for here is tunnel vision;
There's no time for fear - just make a decision!
A right move, a wrong move - strategies collapse.
The feel of a new groove and you begin to relax.
But the moment you start to lean back in your chair
Your opponent will be ready and willing and there.
A shift of the eyes or an overdone yawn:
In your opponent, this moment, a fire is born.
So keep on your guard, keep your brain on the board.
Keep a firmly held shield and a tightly clasped sword.
One miscalculation, one misconstrued chance:
From heady elation to a badly run farce.
Don't believe those who say that the end's in the start.
It's amazing how quickly your plans fall apart.
A game is beginning and middle and end,
With bridges to cross and bridges to mend.
One piece forward, two pieces back -
We tried to warn you not to attack!
You must balance defence with your surges ahead.
Look after the pence and the pounding in your head.
Get the lobes locked in! Get the system on go!
Use the matter within: it's a grey kind of gold!
It's a grey kind of gold that can shine like a flame,
When you give it a challenge, when you give it a game.

By Michael Aziz (who lost six games in a row at Scrabble)

A couple of days ago we referred to MSO events which have taken place around the world and the fact that there are interesting games which so far have only been played in other countries. Nations which have hosted Mind Sports Olympiads include the Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Korea and Singapore.

However, next on the MSO calendar is the 3rd Mind Sports Festival in Oulu, Finland between October 24th and November 2nd. Not a full Olympiad yet, but tournaments in Go, Shogi, Chess, Xiangqi and Mamba form a fine start. We hope to see you there!

Beautiful Boardgame
Free tuition here for all
Today, six to eight

The three-day qualification process is over and we now know the line-up for the three Olympiad Championship final competitions which take place today and tomorrow.

9 meet in the Gold flight: John Broomfield, Jeff Barber, Inoue Yutaka, John Slattery, Richard Biddle, Rodney Lighton, Dario de Toffoli, Kevin Stebbing & Paul Gilbertson.

5 compete in the Silver division: Mahmoud Jahanbani, John Rudolf, Andrew Havery, Steve Rimmer and Jane Oxley.

Lastly, three still in and vying for Bronze are Barry Teece, Phil Williams and Tim Brown.

Congratulations to Tim Hebbes, the winner of the Evening Scrabble championship who has maintained his perfect record throughout the nine rounds! Tim is one of the MSO's familiar faces, having collected junior golds, silvers and bronzes since MSO 1. However, this represents his first senior gold medal. May there be many more to come!

The ruling agreed after appeal in the Oware tournament was that when George Miller's flag fell, he conceded all the remaining seeds on the board at the time to his opponent. As this left the score at 24-24, the game was declared to be drawn. Of course, if he had secured fewer than 24 seeds before his flag fell, the opponent would take all the remaining ones which would be enough to get to 25 and so win the game. Much as getting to 25 seeds guarantees you a win at once, getting to 24 secures you a draw at once. When your flag falls, this means that you lose the opportunity to earn any more seeds than you have taken already.

The answer to the intelligence question was B; aeroplanes follow the curvature of the earth and so their paths look curved on a flat projection map.

Demis Hassabis set himself the goal of winning both Decamentathlon and Pentamind in the same year back at MSO 1. He's managed the second half of that goal four times, but never both halves in the same year yet. This year he took great joy in his first ever Decamentathlon victory, the gold medal he most wanted to add to his collection, over 17 very talented rivals; his joint-top scores in the Memory, Chess and Go papers helped him to a score of 616/1000, ahead of Steve Rimmer (591/1000) and Matthew Cordell (583/1000). While scores are not really directly comparable from one year to another due to variability in the standards of the papers, 616/1000 is the highest score ever on record and a 25-point victory ties with Ben Pridmore's record margin.

Demis Hassabis hard at work winning the Decamentathlon