List of world championships in mind sports

This page gives a list of world championships in mind sports which usually represent the most prestigious competition for a specific board game, card game or mind sport. World championships can only be held for most games or mind sports with the ratification of an official body. Some Eastern games only have amateur world championships and separate professional competitions as can be seen for Go (list of professional Go tournaments).

All-round game competitions

World championships that consist of competitions across multiple events to find the strongest games all-rounders.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Abstract strategy games	Abstract Games World Championship[1]	Individuals	2008	Andres Kuusk	2014	One year
Decamentathlon	Decamentathlon World Championship[2]	Individuals	1997	Chris Bryant	2016	One year
Mind Sports	The Pentamind[2]	Individuals	1997	James Heppell	2016	One year

Card games

World championships in card games.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Contract bridge	Bermuda Bowl	Teams	1950	Poland	2017	Two years
Poker	World Series of Poker Main Event	Individuals	1971	Joe McKeehen	2016	One year
Magic: The Gathering	Magic: The Gathering World Championship	Individuals	1994	Seth Manfield	2016	One year
	World Magic Cup	Teams	1995	Marco Cammilluzzi Andrea Mengucci Franceso Bifero William Pizzi	2016	One year
Pokémon Trading Card Game	Pokémon World Championships[3]	Masters, Seniors, Juniors	2004	Haruto Kobayashi (Junior) Trent Orndorff (Senior) Andrew Estrada (Master)	2015	One year
Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game	Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships[4]	Individuals	2004	Shunsuke Hiyama Mijail Stephano Flores Barboza (Junior)	2016	One year

Classic/traditional strategy games

Major world championships for classic strategy board games, i.e. chess or go.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Backgammon	Backgammon World Championship[5]	Individuals	1967	Ali Cihangir Çetinel	2016	One year
Chess	World Chess Championship[6]	Individuals	1886	Magnus Carlsen	2016	Two years
International draughts	Draughts World Championship[7]	Individuals	1885	Alexander Georgiev	2017
English draughts	World Checkers Championship	Individuals	1847	Michele Borghetti (3-Move) Sergio Scarpetta (GAYP)	2017 2016	Two years
Go	World Amateur Go Championship	Individuals	1979	Changhun Kim	2016	One year
Mahjong	World Mahjong Championship	Individuals	2002	Zhou Yong	2016
Renju	Renju World Championship	Individuals	1989	Qi Guan	2017	Two years
Shogi	Meijin (shogi)	Individuals	1937	Habu Yoshiharu	2016	One year
Xiangqi	World Xiangqi Championship[8]	Individuals	1990	Zheng Weitong	2017	Two years

Esports

Official world championships in both individual and team based esports.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Call of Duty	Call of Duty Championship	Teams	2013	Denial eSports (2015)	2016	One year
Dota 2	The International	Teams	2011	Evil Geniuses (2015)	2016	One year
League of Legends	League of Legends World Championship	Teams	2011	SK Telecom T1 (2015)	2016	One year
Pokémon	Pokémon World Championships	Individuals	2009	Shoma Honami (2015: Master) Mark McQuillan (2015: Senior) Kotone Yasue (2015: Junior)	2016	One year
Smite	Smite World Championship	Teams	2015	Epsilon eSports (2016)	2017	One year
StarCraft II	StarCraft II World Championship Series	Individuals	2012	Kim "sOs" Yoo-jin (2015)	2016	One year
Street Fighter	Capcom Cup	Individuals	2013	Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue (2015)	2016	One year

Mental disciplines

Competitions using mental tests.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Memory	World Memory Championships[9]	Individuals	1991	Alex Mullen	2016	One year
Mental calculation	Mental Calculation World Cup	Individuals	2004	Granth Thakkar	2016	Two years
	Mind Sports Olympiad	Individuals	1997	Gert Mittring	2016	One year
	Junior Mental Calculation World Championship	Individuals	2013	Mohammad El Mir (Juniors 1) Wenzel Grüß (Juniors 2) Izdar Abulizi (Seniors)	2016	One year

Modern abstract strategy games

Competitions in abstract strategy games.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Arimaa	Arimaa World Championship[10]	Individuals	2004	Mathew Brown	2016	One year
Bōku	Bōku World Championship[11]	Individuals	2000	Martin Hobemagi	2016	One year
Entropy/Hyle	Entropy World Championship[11]	Individuals	1997	Andres Kuusk	2016	One year
GIPF	Project Gipf World Championship	Individuals	2008	Mathijs Booden	(2008)
Kamisado	Kamisado World Championship[11]	Individuals	2011	Andres Kuusk	2016	One Year
Lines of Action	LoA World Championship[11]	Individuals	1997	Andres Kuusk	2016	One year
Morabaraba	Morabaraba World Championship	Individuals	1997	Rannyadi Moses	(2008)
Othello/Reversi	World Othello Championship[11]	Individuals	1977	Yusuke Takanashi	2016	One year
Stratego	Stratego World Championship[11]	Individuals	1997	Pim Neimejer	2016	One year
Twixt	TwixT World Championship[11]	Individuals	1997	Florian Jamian	2016	One Year

Multiplayer board games

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Diplomacy	World Diplomacy Convention[12]	Individuals	1988	Toby Harris	2016	One year
Hare and Tortoise	Hare and Tortoise World Championships[13]	Individuals	1997	James Heppell	2016	One year
Monopoly	Monopoly World Championships[14]	Individuals	1973	Nicolò Falcone	TBD	No regular schedule
Settlers of Catan	Catan World Championships[15]	Individuals	2002	Sander Stroom	2016	Two years

Professional services competitions

World championships for professionals and students in professional services industries and disciplines.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Big Data Analytics	TEXATA: Big Data Analytics World Championships[16]	Individuals	2014	Kristin Nguyen	2016	One year
Financial Modeling	ModelOff: Financial Modeling World Championships[17]	Individuals	2012	Joseph Lau	2016	One year
Loyalty Marketing and Gamification	LoyaltyGames: Loyalty and Gamification World Championships[18]	Individuals	2014	Martin Naude	2016	Two years

Speaking competitions

World championships in speaking.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Debating	World Universities Debating Championship[19]	Pairs	1981	Josh Zoffer & Ben Sprung-Keyser	2015	Year
Debating (Spanish)	World Universities Debating Championship in Spanish Campeonato Mundial Universitario de Debate en Español[19]	Pairs	2011	Daniel Cardona & Santiago Vásquez	2016	Year

Tile games

World championships held in tile-based games include:

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Continuo	Continuo World Championship[11]	Individuals	1997	Ricardo Gomes	2016	One year
Dominoes	World Championship Domino Tournament[20]	Individuals	1976	Jerome Wooten	2012	One year
	Domino World Championship[21]	Individuals	1995	Hege Lofthus	2012	One year
Hexago	Hexago World Championship[11]	Individuals	2007	David M. Pearce	(2007)
Tantrix	Tantrix World Championship (online)[22]	Individuals	1998	Chris Hill	2015	One year
Tantrix	Tantrix World Open (real tiles)[23]	Individuals	2009	Zoltan Nemeth	2015[24]	One year (irregular)

Word games

World championships in word games.

Sport	Competition name	Competing entities	First held	Current holder	Next	Held every
Scrabble (English)	World Scrabble Championship[25]	Individuals	1991	Wellington Jighere	2016	Two years; one year since 2013
Scrabble (Spanish)	Spanish World Scrabble Championship[26]	Individuals	1997	Airán Pérez	2016	One year
Scrabble (French)	French World Scrabble Championship Duplicate[27]	Individuals	1972	David Bovet	2016	One year
	French World Scrabble Championship Classic[27]	Individuals	2006	Nigel Richards	2016	One year

See also

• List of world sports championships
• Mind Sports Olympiad
• World Mind Sports Games

References

1. Abstract Games page at MSO, http://www.boardability.com/game.php?id=abstract_games, 15 February 2011
2. Mind Sports Olympiad Supplements, The Times, July–August 1997.
3. http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/the-new-pokemon-world-champions-have-been-crowned/
4. http://www.yugioh-card.com/japan/event/world_championship/2015/
5. Oswald Jacoby & John Crawford, The Backgammon Book, 1970, Macmillan & co
6. Weeks, M. "World Chess Championship FIDE Events 1948-1990". Retrieved 2011-02-15.
7. Chang, K. (2007-07-20). "Champion at Checkers That Cannot Lose to People". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-02-15.
8. World Xiangqi Federation
9. Omonira-Oyekanmi, Rebecca; Moyer, Justin (2010-09-13). "For this champion, life is (mostly) a memory game". The Washington Post.
10. Arimaa World Championship results pages, http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/, 31 Dec 2014
11. Mind Sports Olympiad results pages, http://www.boardability.com/results.php, 15 February 2011
12. Peery, Larry. "A History of World DipCon". Diplomatic Corps.
13. http://www.msoworld.com/results/2015-results/
14. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150908006259/en/Nicol%C3%B3-Falcone-Italy-Defeats-Defending-Champion-Bj%C3%B8rn#.VfBRZ3BVhBd. Missing or empty |title= (help)
15. Settlers official site
16. TEXATA website, http://www.texata.com//
17. ModelOff website, http://www.modeloff.com//
18. LoyaltyGames website, http://www.theloyaltygames.com//
19. World Debating website, http://www.debating.ie//
20. by Rotary Club:"World Championship Domino Tournament page".
21. by Fédération Internationale de Domino (FIDO): "Fédération Internationale de Domino (FIDO): World Championship page".
22. Tantrix official results (online) 2013 http://tournaments.tantrix.co.uk/auto/index.php?page=showph2&comp=WTC&do=final&year=2013
23. Tantrix official results 2013 http://www.tantrix.com/tournaments/index.php?page=home&comp=WTO&year=2013
24. Announcement of 5th WTO (World Tantrix Open)
25. Official Scrabble World Championship site, http://www.wscgames.com/
26. FISE Scrabble site, http://fisescrabble.org/torneos/mundiales/
27. FISF Scrabble site, http://www.fisf.net