Mind Sports Olympiad

The Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) is an annual international multi-disciplined competition and festival for games of mental skill and mind sports. The inaugural event was held in 1997 in London with £100,000 prize fund and was described as possibly the biggest games festival ever held.

The MSO was the first event of its kind celebrating mental skills and awarding gold, silver and bronze medals for each event and was highly influential on the mind sports movement and competitions that have followed since. The main MSO tournament has been held every year in England.

The first Mind Sports Olympiad was held in London's Royal Festival Hall in 1997. It brought together an unprecedented number of strategy games and events. William Hartston in 'The Independent said, "The biggest gamesfest ever to hit these (or perhaps any other) shores".

The inaugural MSO along with a very large number of games, introduced two new events of their own creation the Pentamind and the Decamentathlon. These were two events to parallel the multi-event games in athletics of the modern pentathlon and the decathlon. This was part of the ambition to create an Olympics of the mind.

The Mind Sports Olympiad returned to London with sponsorship in both 1998 and 1999. Despite a falling out between the organisers a successful event was held in Alexandra Palace the next year in 2000.

During this time several satellite events were held around the world bearing the Mind Sports Olympiad name. These have occurred in Cambridge, England;Singapore;Seoul, South Korea;Milan, Italy;Oulu, Finland; and Prague, The Czech Republic.

...
Wikipedia