The 17th Mind Sports Olympiad took place at the University of London Union from August 16th to the 25th, 2013, and featured competitors from over 40 countries. The oldest competitor, Bernard Morgan age 89, won a Bronze medal in Dominoes while the youngest competitor, Alexander Hassabis age 7, took home a junior gold medal in the Settlers of Catan tournament.

The Pentamind World Championship was shared by UK’s Ankush Khandelwahl and Estonia’s Andres Kuusk both of whom had a total of 492 points out of a maximum 500 points. The Pentamind is awarded to the player who scores the best results in five distinct games. Khandelwahl won gold medals at Chess, Poker, Carcassonne, Lines of Action and Acquire, while Andres’ won the Hare and Tortoise World Championship, the Entropy World Championship, the Kamisado World Championship and the Boku World Championship. The Women’s Pentamind World Championship was won by Emily Watson who excelled at Tetris, Acquire, and Diplomacy. Fifteen year old Martin Hobemagi from Estonia won the Junior Pentamind World Championship, and also won gold medals in poker, monopoly, bridge and renju.

Martin Hobemagi (left), Ankush Khandelwahl (middle), and Andres Kuusk (right)

The Diving Chess World Championship was won by David Jameson of the UK. Diving Chess features an underwater chessboard, and competitors are able to think for as long as they can hold their breath as they must complete a move before resurfacing–at which point, their opponents must submerge themselves, only to resurface once they have made their underwater move.

The Computer Programming Competition was won by Julia Hayward and the Starcraft competition was won by Anatol Gasiorowski. The Mind Sports Tetris competition was won by the UK Tetris Champion Paul Erdunast, while George Lane defeated nine-time World Champion Gert Mittring in the Mental Calculations World Championship.

The Mind Sports Olympiad features over 60 tournaments and over a dozen world championships. The Amateur Poker World Championship was won by Michael Dixon. The Creative Thinking World Championship was won by Dan Hoch and Gaby Kappus. Martyn Hamer won the gruelling Decamentathlon, which tests competitors on 10 different skills which include chess, intelligence, go, memory, mastermind, sudoku, and mental calculations.

Emily Watson won the Women’s Pentamind World Championship

The Diving Chess World Championship: players can think for as long as they can hold their breath

UK Tetris champ Paul Erdunast (player on right) takes on Henry Lam (player on left)

The Mental Calculation World Championship was won by George Lane (middle) followed by Gert Mittring (left), and Andrew Robertshaw (right)

Click here for a full list of results.

Click here for more photos at the Mind Sports Olympiad’s Facebook page.