Date: Sunday, 29 June 2025
Location: Mind Sports Centre, 21 Dalling Rd, LONDON, W6 0JD
The Mind Sports Olympiad is a regular event bringing together the best abstract strategy games players in the world. We select three of their popular games here.
Amazons was invented in 1988 by Walter Zamkauskas of Argentina. It is usually played on a 10 x 10 board, but can be played on 8×8 boards.
How the pieces move
Each side has four queens starting around the edge of the board as in the diagram above. Each move has two parts: the slide and the throw. The slide is the same as a queen’s move in chess. There are no captures. The throw is from the moved queen to an unoccupied target square which is then marked as being permanently blocked. Queens cannot move through each other and cannot move through a blocked square.
Winning Condition
Each player is trying to gain as much territory as possible. The winner is the last player to move.
Lines of Action was invented by Claude Sauci in 1989.
How the pieces move
Each side has two lots of six queens starting at the opposite edges of the board as in the diagram above. The number of squares a queen moves is determined by a formula depending upon its position.
Gameplay
The formula is given by the number of pieces, whether friend or enemy, along that “line of action”. The count of the number of pieces in a line includes the piece moving. You may pass over your own pieces but never over enemy pieces. In the diagram above, the piece moves two squares from c1 to c3 because there are two pieces along the c file.
Winning Condition
Each player is trying to gain as much territory as possible. The winner is the last player to move.
Abalone was invented by Michel Lalet and Laurent Lévi in 1987.
How the pieces move
On their turn, each player may move either a single marble or Column of marbles of their own color one space. A Column consists of two or three marbles of the same colour directly adjacent to one another in a straight line. A marble or a column can move in any one of six directions in an in-line move or side-step move.
Gameplay
A player can push their opponent’s marbles (a “sumito”) that are in a line to their own with an in-line move only. They can only push if the pushing line has more marbles than the pushed line (three can push one or two; two can push one). Marbles must be pushed to an empty space (i.e. not blocked by a marble) or off the board.
Winning Condition
The winner is the first player to push six of the opponent’s marbles off of the edge of the board.