This online tournament is sponsored by SportAccord, the City government of Beijing, and Pandanet. Top prize is an all-included trip to observe the Second SportAccord World Mind Games held in Beijing later this year. There are other prizes for sectional winners as well, plus three iPAD's to be given as lottery prizes drawn among all players who finish the preliminary round!

Registration for this event is free and is now open. See below for details.
http://www.pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet/115/

Wait, 2nd World Mind Sports Games in Beijing?

Is that just a typo or are they claiming the mantle of the first WMSG? (Not that I'd mind, Beijing put on a great show)

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Of course it is a typo. Should be the Second "SportAcccord World Mind Games", not the "World Mind Sport Games". The title of the thread is, luckily, correct.

Which rules of play are used or allowed, which if the players disagree? If IGS-Japanese Rules, for which this link states the AFAIK still valid description,
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/igsrules.html
are used, then how are the rules' scoring ambiguities resolved in case of the players' disagreement? Typical problem: indirect approach kos.

In the preliminary stage, how do the players find their opponents? May potential opponent's refuse to play?

Since GoPanda is prescribed for Windows PCs, where can I find information on its PC security?

A player's internet connection origin may be verified. I suppose this can be done by ISP. However, is there really a relation of ISPs to regions in the world? E.g., satellite providers or redirection services can make it hard to identify the player's region. It is impossible to verify that a player plays at home, e.g. if he uses a mobile access and plays in a park. The rule "You must play your games at your home." cannot be verified well.

A similar format is used in The Pandanet Cup http://www.pandanet.co.jp/event/iwag2012/e/. It is very fun! I registered for the ranked sections and played some games with 3 and 4 dans. The games are played in a different room and you don't see what rank people have but you can watch games. Some clients have problems with this, maybe not showing any players at all when you enter the room. I find out their rank when I get the game record in email from the server.

Some players are probably motivated to find weaker players. The right spirit is to not worry much about who you are playing :) and because you can only play one game with each opponent you may not have many players to choose from anyway. But yeah you can pick 1d opponent over 7d if you know their rank :))

You can refuse games in Pandanet Cup without any penalty. That is in the preliminary not in later stages. Not sure why anyone would play a self paired tournament if they have to accept any and all game requests.

I read that the rules is that you must play the games from your home. I doubt this has anything to do with the requirements for participation. Which is that you are a national or resident of IGF member or region. I think they are trying to make it harder to cheat by having more than one person play games with the same account. There is a similar requirement for the Pandanet Cup but I think you can get an exemption there.

Why don't you just run a virtual machine? I mean that seriously, it seems entirely in line with the way you handle your computing.

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Occupy Babel!

the new Pandanet client is Java, so it'll run on any OS (that supports Java)

1) My RAM is limited, so VM is no fun.

2) Instead of VM, I use a different (and more restrictive) sort of sandbox mechanism.

3) The usual PC precautions and (2) do not answer the question about the security of the software itself and of JRE.

Reminder: The registration for the SportAccord Online Tournament is now open. See:
http://www.pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet/115/

In addition to a grand prize of a fully-paid trip to Beijing, there are other prizes for each geographical region, including iPad's whose winners will be randomly drawn from all people who participate and finish the first round, whether or not they advance to the second round.

This tournament is sponsored by SportAccord, Pandanet, and the International Go Federation.

The registration for the SportAccord Online Tournament is entering the last two days. See:
http://www.pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet/115/

Don't miss it! The prizes are generous and the competition should be very interesting. You can also follow the progress of the tournament on the Pandanet website.

I am in the SAWMG-EU room alone right now. Not everybody has the first day fever, apparently

Professor Hsiang:
I have been trying to get into the tournament room SAWMG-AM since the preliminary started. Everytime I tried to get this message: Error. You can not join this room.
I have not been able to play because I can not get into this room. I am using GoPanda client.
Thanks for looking at this problem.
farmer

I am having the same problem.

Anyone have a solution for this?

Tried asking IGS ?

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North Lecale

I have the same problem... I have asked Pandanet for help and will pass on the information as soon as I get it. My guess is that you have to use GoPanda-2 client. On the Pandanet "results" page, you will see that the Asian and European players do not seem to have any problems and they mostly use GoPanda-2

Thanks for the quick reply. I tried GoPanda 2 too and it is terrible. I used it to enter the tournament room but I did not see any players there, not even myself is listed in there. Maybe it is the client's problem. Still hope that they can make it work for GoPanda 1. GoPnda 2 is very awkward and hard to get around.

It looks like the problem is at least partially fixed. I was able to get in the SAWMG-AM room with GoPanda and there is at least one game going on right now.

I also had the can't join room error with GoPanda (for EU room). What I did to enter the room is: Open the console tab in GoPanda, and type "join room-number" (without quotes). You can see the room number in interface where you click to (unsuccessfully) join the room.

edit: I just tried normal way (without console) also working. So seems fixed.

The problem is reportedly fixed. But it should be noted that GoPanda-2 still does not work with Internet Explorer (IE). So IE is your preferred browser, use GoPanda which works fine for the SAWMG rooms. Also, PandaTetsuki is available for iPad users.

SportAccord 2012 World Mind Games online tournament

The SportAccord World Mind Games online tournament started in September and will go on till the end of October.

One winner will be selected for each sport and will be invited for a one week journey to attend and watch the 2012 SportAccord World Mind Games in Beijing (travel and accommodation included). He will also have the chance to play against some of the world’s best worldwide players of his sport. Online winners will also receive a commemorative medal and a certificate at the closing ceremony of the event.
2 Samsung tablets and 2 Swatch watches will be awarded in each sport to more players depending on their performance.
A special donation by Pandanet provides additional 3 iPad's as lottery prizes for the Go participants.

All the players are welcome to play on the participating platforms:

Bridge
BBO: http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/news_fetch.php?id=1302
FUN BRIDGE : http://www.funbridge.com/fr/?from=imsa
OURGAMES: http://www.ourgame.com

Chess
http://www.chessbase.com

Draughts
http://draughtsserver.kndb.nl
http://damserver.kndb.nl

Go
PANDANET: http://www.pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet/115
OURGAMES: http://www.ourgame.com
The tournament will be played on the Internet Go Server (IGS, aka Pandanet.)

Xiang Qi :
OURGAMES: http://www.ourgame.com

Additional information related to the schedule and the participating online platforms are available on http://www.imsaworld.com