The IMSA Elite Mind Games will be held in December 9 through 16 in Huai’an City, Jiangsu Province, China.The opening ceremony was held in the afternoon and was a grandoise event. There was a wonderful performance of music and art, showing the historical features and customs of the ancient city of Huai’an.

This will be a top event in Huai’an involving not just chess. The championships in the mind sports will be extremely fierce, and compettibvie just as all other sports. Everyone can feel the tension in the battle of wits. The IMSA Elite Mind Games include five disciplines: Chess, Xiangqi, Draughts, Go, and Bridge. Moreover, the card game—Huai’an Guandan will be appeared as an exhibition game again.

Nearly 400 participants including athletes, arbiters and officials from 44 countries and regions will be involved in this event. Players in each category are all amongst the top 50 athletes in the word.

The selection for the final list of 12 participants in each category (Men and Women)of chess was based on the average for last 12 months of the player’s three ratings for classical, blitz and rapid.

The organisers of the event are the Board and Card Games Administrative Center of the General Administration of Sport, Beijing, China together with the Municipality of Huai’an in Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China.

After the Opening Ceremony, a technical meeting was held with all 24 players and the pariings for all events was carried out.

For the first round we will see the following games :

	Name	FED			Name	FED
GM	Ju Wenjun	CHN	-	IM	Paehtz Elisabeth	GER
GM	Muzychuk Anna	UKR	-	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	RUS
GM	Lagno Kateryna	RUS	-	GM	Zhao Xue	CHN
GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	FID	-	GM	Muzychuk Mariya	UKR
GM	Harika Dronavalli	IND	-	GM	Tan Zhongyi	CHN
GM	Ushenina Anna	UKR	-	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	GEO

From the women's event we see an early clash between current rapid women world champion Anna Muzychuk and former world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk ! But with such a strong field all ghames are extremely tense and will detremine who may be the ultimate winner.



The men's pairings were equally interesting. The youngest player, GM Artemiev takes on one of the top seeds in an all Russian clash. Worth keeping an eye on this game as both players are extremely combative. Also two giants cross swords once again and number one seed GM Mamedyarov takes on current Rapid World Champion, Vassily Ivanchuk from Ukraine.

	Name	FED			Name	FED
GM	Artemiev Vladislav	RUS	-	GM	Grischuk Alexander	RUS
GM	Andreikin Dmitry	RUS	-	GM	Le Quang Liem	VIE
GM	Yu Yangyi	CHN	-	GM	Mamedov Rauf	AZE
GM	Korobov Anton	UKR	-	GM	Ding Liren	CHN
GM	Mamedyarov Shakhriyar	AZE	-	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	UKR
GM	Harikrishna P.	IND	-	GM	Wang Hao	CHN