Although Chess has always been the main game I play I will play pretty much anything else and am reasonably strong at most of them as well. At the bottom of this page will be links to some posts about these games, I’ll try and add to these as often as possible although I admit that it will be easier for me to add content to the chess area.
I get to play a lot of these games at the Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO), an annual games tournament with a very wide range of events. Back in 2009 I won the Pentamind World Championship, the central event of the MSO, and I have won tournaments in a number of games. At time of writing I am in 6th place on the overall medal table but I imagine I will slowly slide down this table over the coming years, as the gold medals are becoming increasingly hard to win.
Poker is the game I play most often (after Chess), mostly online as I prefer the quicker rate of play. I also like the wide range of games on there, although Texas Hold-Em is by far the most common variety I enjoy playing all the other variants as well, not usually an option when playing live. I’m a winning player overall, however I don’t play as much as I used to and I’m roughly breaking even at the moment. In 2006 and 2007 I was the World Amateur Poker Champion, a title acquired at the MSO for a range of pot limit games.
Backgammon is another game I enjoy and is probably one of my strongest games. It’s another game I mainly play at the MSO these days, I used to be quite active and am trying to play more often. In fact my first ever tournament at the MSO was a strong backgammon tournament and I somehow managed to win it! I have won a few others over the years, including one in 2009 that was part of my Pentamind win. I played in the 2017 Gibraltar tournament and am becoming more active in other local tournaments.
Finally for now, I have to give Chinese Chess a mention as I feel it is such an underrated game. I’m not particularly good at it, partly lack of practice (I can’t find time to dedicate to ALL of these games) and partly because there is very little literature on it. Well, literature that isn’t written in Chinese anyway! Despite this I really enjoy the game and have been playing it for many years now. I try and take in a tournament every year or so and I played in the European Championships a couple of years ago when it was held in Manchester. I also play annually at the MSO but don’t think I’ve ever won anything higher than a bronze medal for it.
Chinese Chess – an introduction
How to memorise a deck of cards