British mind OLYMPIAD
British mind OLYMPIAD
Just got back from a chess congress in Portsmouth where I scored a creditable 4/6 in my section. could have done better but my mobile went off in the middle of a game and I got booted out of that round! At the congress was a bearded guy (name uknown) who I met a few years ago and when I told him what I did invited me to the above where people competed over a number of games and quizzes. That year it was held in Manchester. Interested to know if anybody has been and what their experience of it was like.
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roberto la vigna
- Senior Member
- Posts: 348
- Joined: Tue May 15, 2007 3:04 pm
Yeah, I did do indeedy-do. (did you see that creative writing just there?)fotherz wrote:VB entered the Creative Writing event once I think.
It sounds like a bit of a joke tbh.
It seemed like the same people turning up every year - most knew each other.
The standard of the chess (as of the Scrabble) is not as high as it could be, but for some disciplines it's world-class (eg. mental calculations, memory).
Also entered a poker event and crashed and burned.
Would like to train for the mental calculations sometime (there's a mailing list about MC that you can suscribe to).
I've not been myself, although I know people who have.
It used to have a small but quite high standard quiz competition with old faces like Kevin Ashman, Daphne Fowler, Trevor Montague competing.
However, its quiz role was gradually overtaken by other organisations, initially the British Quiz Association and now http://www.quizzing.co.uk, and the MSO struggles to get a decent number of high-quality competitors.
I'd quite like to go, just to see what it's like and marvel at some of the skills on display (my skills in other areas are too mediocre to think about competing). I think there's a mental decathlete type of competition, rewarding high standards over a number of different disciplines, which (IIRC) used to be won each year by Demis Hassabis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis), whom I've never met but looks phenomenally clever from his Wikipedia profile.
It used to have a small but quite high standard quiz competition with old faces like Kevin Ashman, Daphne Fowler, Trevor Montague competing.
However, its quiz role was gradually overtaken by other organisations, initially the British Quiz Association and now http://www.quizzing.co.uk, and the MSO struggles to get a decent number of high-quality competitors.
I'd quite like to go, just to see what it's like and marvel at some of the skills on display (my skills in other areas are too mediocre to think about competing). I think there's a mental decathlete type of competition, rewarding high standards over a number of different disciplines, which (IIRC) used to be won each year by Demis Hassabis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis), whom I've never met but looks phenomenally clever from his Wikipedia profile.
Im ashamed JG that my rating is a meagre BCF 115! The highest it has ever been is 165. The problem is I up until recently played only a max of 8 competitive games a year because of quiz machine playing commitments. Now there are two tournaments a year in Portsmouth so I will probably improve. The Open section is under represented so if your grade is 200+ you would probably win.I had to laugh when I was told that there is a player playing for Salisbury with a grade of 15 so I am not quite as bad as I thought. Sorry to digress from the quizzers.