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Prague Mind Sports Olympiads
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Another new destination for the MSO! We're happy to announce
the progress of the Mind Sports Olympiad movement in Central Europe.
First Central European Mind Sports Olympiad
Prague, Czech Republic
1st - 8th July 2001
The first Central European Mind Sports Olympiad was also the first
half of the fifth Mind Sports Olympiad.
The MSO tradition spreads to another country! One of the biggest
mind sports festivals of 2001 will take place in Prague in the
Czech Republic from the 1st to the 8th of July. All the national
board game federations of that country are working together to make
sure this is one of the most spectacular Mind Sports Olympiads yet.
Already, over 50 tournaments have been announced, including 11 Go
tournaments, 9 Checkers tournaments, 7 Chess tournaments, 8 Scrabble
tournaments, 7 Othello tournaments and more. We have top quality
events as well as a high quantity of them; one of the Checkers
tournaments is the Golden Prague Tournament, which already has a
long history and a reputation as one of the world's elite contests.
200 - 300 players are expected in that one competition alone.
The Chess tournament should be something special too; it will be
rated by FIDE and we estimate 200 - 300 players will take place.
The Go tournaments will include the Czech championship and a
Handicap tournament with a prize pool of around 3000 Euros. Other
mind sports will hold their national championships as part of the
Prague Olympiad as well.
However, these are just some of the events which will be taking
place. We look forward to introducing Prague to tournament play in
some of the other favourite MSO mind sports: Abalone, Backgammon,
Bridge, Continuo, Cribbage, Diplomacy, Dominoes, Entropy, GIPF,
HexDame, LOA, Mastermind, Marriage, Othello, Oware, Poker, Stratego,
Shogi, Zatre and more. We expect registrations to flood in, adding
to the guaranteed participants we have already - between them, we
anticipate between one thousand and five thousand players among
all the tournaments!
However, this is only one part of the Olympiad. In addition to the
traditional MSO tournaments, we want the Prague Mind Sports Olympiad,
we want MSO 2001 to be a great meeting of all board games amateurs.
We plan to organise introductory sessions for beginners in many
famous mind sports. We've also invited several games investors
to introduce their classic games and also give workshops on their
older, less famous games.
We also aim to attract the public at large. We'll have special
events for children of all ages: attractions like computer
championships, mind sports against computers, quizzes and a large
general games area where people can play any of our selection of
over 150 games.
Are you an experienced player who wants more? Apart from the top
quality tournaments, we've atttracted several mind sports stars as
special guests, including Hans Wiersma, the six-times world Checkers
champion. These stars will give simultaneous game displays; they'll
also make speeches and give lectures.
Even these experts will learn from the event - we've invited champions
from less famous games, too, to spread the word about their favourite
events. Russian Checkers is played at its highest level in Russia, so
we've got Russia's greatest player, Chulkon, to teach you all about
the game. Likewise, we'll have exclusive talks from grandmasters and
top theorists in Abalone, Marriage and many other games.
If that's not enough, we have outdoor shows, music and dancing, overnight
sessions, games marathons and more planned too!
The venue for the event is very attractive. Tournaments will take place
in a complex of historical buildings on the left bank of the River Vltava.
These are in the middle of the historical centre of the city, and many
people consider Prague one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Many
of the players will be coming not just for the Olympiad but for the
chance to get to see the city as well.
We want to make the Olympiad as accessible to as many people as possible;
we're going to offer a wide variety of accommodation of all standards:
fine apartments with restaurants will be available, so will students'
hostels, so will self-catering solutions where you can sleep in a gymnasium
hall for just 2 Euros per night. This way, we can attract many excellent
stars from Romania, Russia and other Eastern European countries. Even the
entry fees are set to follow a Green scale - prices will be weighted
according to the buying power of currencies from different countries.
We're going to make a big effort to make the event accessible to as many
people as possible, including people with disabilities, people from
poorer countries, children and so on.
People in Prague have loved the concept of the Mind Sports Olympiad ever
since they first heard about it - the first event should draw a large
and curious audience. We've got a lot more great ideas, though, which
we hope to include in a bigger and better Olympiad in the year 2002.
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