World Mind Sports Games kicks off

Every four years, the World Mind Sports Games plays along with the regular Olympics. Sports are chess, bridge, checkers, go and Chinese chess.

I'm going to play in the bridge part of it in the Transnational Mixed Teams. For the Open, Women's and Senior Teams, all players must represent one country. For the Transnational Mixed, players from any country can compose a team. Also, for my event, partnerships must consist of a male and a female. It begins Friday, August 18.

I'm leaving Tuesday and flying to Amsterdam, Netherlands, arriving early Wednesday morning. From there, it's the train to Lille, France, where the games are held. I wanted to arrive early to un-jetlag myself. The team I'm on is Cindy Bernstein, Danny and JoAnn Sprung, Sally Wheeler and Buddy Hanby.

There will be three days of Swiss Teams qualifying with five rounds of 10 boards each per day. The top 16 teams advance to a straight knockout phase. Losers drop into a board-a-match consolation.

After the bridge, I'll be traveling back to Amsterdam for five or six days of being a tourist: Wind mills, wooden shoes, Anne Frank's House, canals and tulips. Don't forget the two world-class museums and just walking around and enjoying a great city and the amazing Dutch people.

For information on World Mind Sports Games, click here.

For the bridge schedule, go here.

For a NY Times article about the games, see here.

Some of the Transnational Mixed Teams matches will likely be shown online on Bridge Base Online. Here's a link to BBO

Artwork (shown above) taken from the World Bridge Federation web site.