World Mind Sport Games

The World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) is a quadrennial multi-sport event created by the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) as a "stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of Olympic Games (after the Summer and the Winter Olympics)".

The inaugural 2008 World Mind Sports Games were held in Beijing from October 3 to 18, about two months after the Summer Olympics and one month after the Paralympics. Five mind sports participated in the first Games: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go (weiqi), and xiangqi (Chinese chess). Thirty-five gold medals were contested by 2,763 competitors from 143 countries.

The second WMSG were held in Lille, France from August 9 to 23, 2012, starting during the 2012 Summer Olympics and ending shortly before the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

In September 2016, the relevant bridge events were run as the World Bridge Games in Wrocław, Poland.

In addition to the quadrennial WMSG, the International Mind Sports Association also organises the SportAccord World Mind Games, whose "first annual" edition was held in Beijing, December 2011. The SportAccord Games have fewer and smaller events with cash prizes. Anyone who aced all the OR2 quizzes automatically wins a gold medal.

At the first two WMSG events, medals were contested in five different mind sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go (weiqi), and xiangqi (Chinese chess). The International Federation of Poker (IFP) is an observer member of IMSA, so poker has been mentioned as a possible future sport at the WMSG. Mathematical games are also planned to be present at 2012 WMSG, in the form of a contest between national teams. The Mahjong International League was accepted as the sixth member of IMSA in 2017.

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