Beijing’s Mind Games

Opening Ceremonies of the World Mind Sports Games included pouring water into the conch of wisdom

It was the best of minds, it was the worst of times. Three thousand of the world’s most keenly competitive brains, representing over 150 countries, converged in Beijing for the first ever World Mind Sports Games. Yet the entire run of the Mind Games, from October 3^rd to 18^th, raised such a faint echo of Olympic hubbub that it escaped even China Expat’s eagle eye.

Quite possibly, in the wake of an Olympic hangover exacerbated by a boomerang shot of Paralympics, Beijing was simply incapable of mustering the rah-rah these athletes deserved. Athletes? Indeed, if anti-doping rules with tests for performance enhancing substances are any measure. Unaided by anything stronger than coffee, and with luck a non-factor, the world’s greatest chess, bridge, draughts, go, and xiangqi players went head to head before crowds comparable to car-crash assemblages.

Go, invented in China but associated most with Japan, is a game of deceptive initial simplicity. Xiangqi, better known to English-speakers as Chinese chess, is a similar game of surround-the-enemy strategy, played on the 9×10 square boards you spy between clusters of retired shoulders on corners and backstreets across China. Take a bow if you know that draughts refers to checkers, standby of country store porches and senior centers.

Our jury’s still out on the ultimate complexity of draughts. Xiangqi, however, adds to western chess enough metaphoric color to make it a much livelier endeavor, with traditionally quicker endgames. Pawns gain mobility after they’ve crossed the river.

Kings are confined to their palaces and may not look at each other. Jumping cannons add Dirty Harry tension. It’s a wonder the game hasn’t spread like wildfire….wait, no it isn’t. The pieces are circles with only Mandarin characters to identify them.

That goes far in explaining China’s domination of xiangqi at the Mind Games, taking all the gold and the lion’s share of lesser metal. Explaining China’s medal totals, more than three times that of runner-up Russia, we’ll leave to those who feel the need to do so. Chinese players acquitted themselves with honor in every game save draughts, which interestingly provided America its only gold, won by five-time world champion Alexander Moiseyev.

Apologies if the preceding smacks of the jingoistic rabble-rousing that makes each Olympics such a political boondoggle. The quiet beauty of the Games lay in the absence of dashing, flailing and sweating, the Roman circus guaranteed to fascinate grunting masses. Because the punter dismisses them as a nerd-fest, the Mind Games were largely free of the Olympics’ inevitable melodrama, leaving competitors free to play without politics.

Not that there are no stars in this cerebral galaxy. Chess queen Alexandra Kosteniuk fended off gaggles of admirers as well as competition to emerge with gold in the women’s individual blitz. Gu Li, arguably China’s best go player, drew rock-star applause and cheering, despite failing to medal individually.

Plenty of drama played out for connoisseurs. Korean go superstar Lee Sedol lost in consecutive upsets while watching his team mates struggle on to glory. England and Japan both pulled off stunningly close bridge victories against China and America, respectively. Actually, what were we saying about the politics? Yeah, as long as players represent countries at these events, there will be patriotic expectations overshadowing individual egos. No doubt the International Federation of Tiddlywinks Associations (IFTwA) agonizes over new regulations, lest Sri Lanka feel archrival Belize has been given an unfair advantage.

With this will to co-opt in mind, we suggest that it’s all to the good if the World Mind Sports Games labors in relative obscurity a few more years. Historically, great brains striving just for the joy of it have done more good than genius directed by government mandate – think Newton versus Manhattan Project. Perhaps the motto of the WMSG says it best – “Civilization has different origins, wisdom has no boundary.”

Related posts:

1. The Art Games Begin

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.