It’s exciting to follow this year’s Pentamind World Championship. Defending Pentamind World Champion Ankush Khandelwal is currently leading the Pentamind standings. True to his online moniker, GameKing51 (aka Ankush) won the Bridge Pairs event, took silver in Backgammon, and scored highly in Poker and Chess. The king is set on defending his crown. Ankush is closely followed by 4-time Pentamind World Champion Andres Kuusk and newcomers Maciej Brzeski and Jordi Alexander. 

Jordi Alexander (aka Legendario) is representing Cyprus and currently lives in Singapore. He won the CATAN: Cities and Knights tournament, which started at 10pm his time. He played through the night–winning at 9am the next morning. You can watch his exciting CATAN final table win with commentary by CATAN Studio CEO Pete Fenlon here: 

https://www.facebook.com/MindSportsOlympiad/videos/747408539169454

Jordi also medaled in Battle Sheep and scored highly in Poker, Carcassonne, and Chess. Check out Jordi’s interview with Chris Fung on gameplay and strategy:

https://www.facebook.com/MindSportsOlympiad/videos/981187202354941

4-time Pentamind World Champion Andres Kuusk (Estonia) took gold in Quoridor and silver in Battle Sheep. Andres (aka Vashod) also scored highly in Bridge, Poker, and Entropy. Here’s a key game that he won in Quoridor against on of the best players in the world:

MSO newcomer Maciej Brzeski (Poland) already won four golds this year and medalled in Chess, Go, and Battle Sheep. He’s mentioned that he’s eyeing his first Pentamind World Championship. Check out this great commentary by WIM Sabrina Chevannes from the Chess Blitz Arena that Maciej narrowly won in the last few minutes:

https://www.facebook.com/113173408734185/videos/677244462883244