The 30th Mind Sports Olympiad has come to a close after nine extraordinary days of competition in London, with James Heppell winning his third Pentamind title after a dramatic final day.

The closing weekend also saw Denmark’s Frederik Mikkelsen crowned Backgammon World Champion, Poland’s Klaudia Kulon win the Vera Menchik Memorial, and a packed programme of chess, backgammon, board games and other mind sports bring the 30th edition of MSO to a memorable conclusion.

More than 1,000 competitors came together at Mercure London Earls Court from 22 to 30 August, competing across chess, backgammon, Catan, Scrabble, Carcassonne, poker, puzzles and dozens of other mind sports.

The Olympiad was also featured in The Times, which visited MSO to explore the remarkable range of games and competitors taking part.

Read The Times feature:
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/mind-sports-olympiad-london-g7dxr6ld9

James Heppell wins his third Pentamind

The Pentamind World Championship, MSO’s ultimate test of all-round mind-sports ability, went right down to the final events on Sunday.

James Heppell entered the final day in the lead, but several players still had a route to the title.

Ankush Khandelwal had surged into contention after winning Ticket to Ride on Saturday night. To overtake James, he then needed to win both Chess960 and a backgammon event on Sunday. Ankush won the chess, but could not complete the double in backgammon.

Meanwhile, both Tung Yat Cheng and George Altshul could also have overtaken James with an outright victory in Patchwork. Instead, Ricardo Gomes won Patchwork outright.

That confirmed James Heppell as Pentamind champion for the third time. James’ medals included Amazons, Entropy, Lines of Action World Championship and Poker. 

The Pentamind rewards versatility rather than mastery of a single discipline, with competitors counting their five best performances from five different games.

See the final Pentamind standings:
https://mindsportsolympiad.com/live-standings-pentamind/

Frederik Mikkelsen crowned Backgammon World Champion

Denmark’s Frederik Mikkelsen has been crowned Backgammon World Champion after defeating compatriot Pia Jeppesen 17-13 in an all-Danish final.

The result brought to a close a historic week for backgammon in Britain.

The World Team, Women’s World Team and Individual Backgammon World Championships were held in the UK for the first time, as part of the biggest backgammon event ever staged in the country.

Earlier in the week, the USA defeated Iran in the final of the Women’s World Team Championship, while the Netherlands defeated Belgium to win the World Team Backgammono Championship.

Bringing the team and individual world championships together under the same roof as the Mind Sports Olympiad was one of the highlights of the 30th edition, with leading players from around the world competing alongside MSO’s huge range of other games.

Klaudia Kulon wins the Vera Menchik Memorial

Poland’s Klaudia Kulon won the 11th Vera Menchik Memorial, scoring 7.5/9 in the prestigious women’s invitational.

The tournament honours Vera Menchik, the first Women’s World Chess Champion, who held the title from 1927 until her death in London in 1944, when she was killed by a German flying bomb during the Second World War.

See the final Vera Menchik Memorial standings:
https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1471927.aspx?lan=1&art=1&SNode=S0

Joseph Girel wins a star-studded Rapid Open

Chess was one of the major attractions of this year’s Olympiad from the opening weekend onwards, with more than 30 Grandmasters and International Masters competing across the Rapid and Blitz programme.

French Grandmaster Joseph Girel produced an outstanding performance to win the MSO Rapid Open with 9/10.

See the Rapid Open final standings:
https://s1.chess-results.com/tnr1394731.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=10&fed=POL&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0

The chess programme continued throughout the nine days with Blitz, Chess960, Bughouse, Chess Problem Solving and numerous other chess variants and related games.

Raymond Keene OBE, one of the original founders of the Mind Sports Olympiad, also returned to MSO and made the ceremonial opening move of the chess tournament, providing a fitting link between the Olympiad’s beginnings and its 30th edition.

Watch Raymond Keene make the opening move:
https://youtu.be/SLdHgg60vvw?si=7f_bgb-FW4JKG4GO&t=38

55 Korean juniors make their mark

One of the most memorable features of MSO 2026 was the arrival of 55 junior competitors from the Korean Mind Sports Olympiad.

The delegation collected medals across a remarkable range of games, including backgammon, Abalone, Boku, Mensa Connections, Hare & Tortoise, Lines of Action, Lost Cities, Kingdomino and Rummikub.

Seungbin Yu won junior gold in the 6×3-point Backgammon event and also emerged as one of the leading juniors in the Pentamind competition.

South Korea swept the junior podium in the Abalone World Championship. Dahoon Han won junior gold while finishing second overall, Ye Jun Kang took junior silver and third overall, and Ji Ho Lee completed the junior podium with bronze.

France’s Vincent Frochot was crowned overall Abalone World Champion.

10-year-old beats a former Carcassonne World Champion

The Carcassonne 2-Player competition featured an exceptional field containing three former Carcassonne World Champions: Bogdan Curcan, Daniel Angelats and Matt Tucker.

Romania’s Bogdan Curcan took gold, Tung Yat Cheng of Hong Kong, China won silver and former World Champion Daniel Angelats took bronze.

One of the performances of the week came from 10-year-old Constantine Popov of Wales, who won junior gold and defeated former World Champion Matt Tucker along the way.

TAMPIONS scores 149 in Scrabble

Scrabble also provided one of the opening weekend’s most memorable plays, with TAMPIONS scoring 149 points.

Craig Solomons won the Scrabble competition, part of a programme that once again demonstrated the remarkable breadth of games contested at MSO.

International success in Catan and beyond

Catan was another major attraction, with events spanning Classic Catan, 2-Player Catan and Cities & Knights.

In the main Catan competition, Rudolfs Lagzda of Latvia won gold, ahead of Vytautas Pazera of Lithuania and George Altshul of Great Britain.

Tung Yat Cheng of Hong Kong, China demonstrated exactly the kind of versatility celebrated by MSO, following his Carcassonne silver with Azul gold and remaining in contention for the Pentamind until the final day.

Seven-time Pentamind champion Andres Kuusk of Estonia added another world title to his collection by winning the Boku World Championship, alongside strong performances across several other disciplines.

An extraordinary 30th Mind Sports Olympiad

Founded in 1997, the Mind Sports Olympiad was created around a simple idea: to bring the world’s great games of mental skill together under one roof.

Thirty editions later, that idea remains at the heart of MSO.

Over nine days in London, world champions competed alongside first-time entrants, adults alongside juniors, and specialists alongside extraordinary all-rounders moving from one completely different game to another.

The 2026 Olympiad brought together historic Backgammon World Championships, elite international chess, classic games such as Scrabble and poker, modern favourites including Catan and Ticket to Ride, abstract strategy games, puzzles, creative-thinking competitions and much more.

Thank you to all the competitors, arbiters, volunteers, organisers, partners, spectators and international delegations who made the 30th Mind Sports Olympiad such a memorable one.

See you at the next MSO!

I think this hierarchy is right: Pentamind first for the MSO audience, Backgammon second as the biggest international sporting story, then chess and the broader festival highlights.