MOCHALUNT is a fantastic games league. Derived from Esperanto, in English this acronym stands for “World Championship of Abstract Games for National Teams”.

The tournament is played online, which means that national teams from across the world can compete. Each team consists of four or more players. Smaller teams can allow a player to compete on multiple boards. This rule has helped encourage smaller nations to join. The competition is now completing its third and attracts teams from across the world, with teams from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

The competition takes place over a year (with a break over Summer for the MSO) and consists of 8 rounds. Each round corresponds approximately to a calendar month. In each round, the organisers have chosen four or five diverse games. Teams must choose four games for each round. As an example, the final round of MOCHALUNT 2024 featured Ponte del Diavolo, Pente, Ordo, Tzaar and Circle of Life. Games which will be familiar to MSO players include Chess (Round 1), Go (Round 2), Twixt (Round 4) and Lines of Action (Round 6). But MOCHALUNT also introduces competitors to some delightful, lesser-known, gems such as Connect6 (Round 2) and Tumbleweed (Round 7). The latter (Tumbleweed) has been described by the top-ranked German player Bernd Radmacher (in a nod to Go) as “a game that has always existed, just had to be discovered”. The discovery new and interesting games is one of the main joys of MOCHALUNT.

In 2024, the top two teams were England and Germany. After a close match, Germany once again emerged victorious. Congratulations to Germany! Other nations with strong performances include Colombia, South Korea, France, Italy, Ecuador, Mexico and Estonia.

Although MOCHALUNT is a team competition, the organisers have an individual competition to try to determine the best individual player. This is calculated as score in two parts: Raw score (across all rounds) multiplied by the “strength” of opponents (determined by the average score of your opponents). This latter factor compensates players on board 1 who therefore face “tougher” competition compared with board 4.

The Ladies category was won this year by former Ladies Pentamind World Champion Natasha Regan from team England. Natasha faced Yoonji-Jeon from South Korea in her final match. Congratulations to Natasha! As well being a strong games player, Natasha is also an author. Her recent book “Game Changer” about AlphaZero was even mentioned in the round 6 press conference by both World Chess Championship players Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju!

The overall Individual category was won this year by former Pentamind World Champion Alain Dekker, also from team England. Alain faced Oscar Fajardo Chica from Colombia. Congratulations to Alain!

To find out more about MOCHALUNT, please visit their website at https://www.abstrakta.info/mochalunt-2024.html.