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. The Mind Sports Olympiad main event continued to happen with smaller sponsorship and the tournaments were held at a number of different universities. The event was still going strong for the years 2001–2006. The main 2004 event featured a separate event for schools, featuring competitions and activities in chess, Go, quizzes and intelligence puzzles. But in 2007 the Mind Sports Olympiad was reduced to a much smaller venue in
Potters Bar due to no sponsorship and no advertising. In 2008 the MSO saw a revival, returning to a central London venue, the
Royal Horticultural Halls,
Westminster and again on 21–31 August 2009 The 2010 event was held at the
Soho Theatre in London. The 16th MSO took place once again at the University of London Union in 18–27 August 2012, and similarly the 17th MSO was also at ULU. because it is still regarded as the foremost competition for all-rounders especially the "coveted Pentamind World Championship", while the 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2016 Pentamind World Champion Andres Kuusk is from
Estonia.
Structure of the organisation When the MSO was initially formed in 1997, the main organisers included
David Levy,
Tony Buzan, and
Raymond Keene As of 2012 the board running the MSO along with David Levy are Tony Corfe and
Etan Ilfeld is based upon the famous depiction found on over 150 items of ancient pottery from around 500 BC . Probably based either on an item from
The British Museum or
Vatican Museum collections. Alongside bestowing titles of Olympiad and
World Champions, the MSO organisers originally envisaged having their own ratings and ranks system, however, not all of these ideas came to pass. The MSO continues to give its own ranks of up to International Grandmaster. ==Editions and venues==