Delightful though it may be, two weeks of London’s Olympia is more than enough for anyone. During early September the entire industry decamps to London for the schmooze-tastic European Computer Trade Show (ECTS). Unfortunately for me and unlike everyone else, I’d also spent the entire previous week there competing in the annual Mind Sports Olympiad.

The Mind Sports Olympiad is the gaming equivalent of the Olympics. At this year’s event 4000 people competed in dozens of events including Chess, Bridge, Draughts, Backgammon, Scrabble, Othello and Go. And it’s not just about traditional games. This year they had Magic the Gathering and next year they’ve asked me to help them include computer games for the first time (Civilization world championships anyone?).

It’s a fantastic event and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s serious about their games. When I was a kid I wanted to be a professional chess player and although I changed tack, I’m still a committed board gamer. Last year I won the Pentamind event, which is the overall event. This year I returned to defend my title and despite its rarefied image, Mind Sports is as competitive as any other sport. At the highest level, everything goes. Sledging, shaking of tables and all manner of skulduggery is par for the course. The junior Chess tournaments I used to attend had wooden boards under the tables preventing competitors from kicking each other. Don’t be fooled – this is warfare.

Most people kill brain cells through drink and drugs. I on the other hand do so by playing too many games. At the end of this year’s event my head felt like I’d spent the entire week larging it on Ibiza, rather than playing Chess and Go. In retaining my title as overall winner I took part in twenty-two events.

A week later I was back again for ECTS. It was a quiet affair this year and a lot of the big publishers weren’t there. Eidos chose to exchange the scantily dressed models of yesteryear for the discrete surroundings of Lara Croft’s living room, which was tucked away on the gallery upstairs. Naturally the room was besieged for three days by drooling blokes eager to catch a glimpse of the impossibly fit women who were sure to be in there. Imagine the crushing disappointment as the doors open to reveal Joe and myself on our way to lunch.

Several days before the show a professional photographer came up to do some new photos of the team. We did these in the middle of Camden and it was excruciatingly embarrassing. Crowds of people stopped and stared hoping to catch glimpse of someone famous. After much head-scratching, they realised that what they were actually looking at wasn’t a Mercury award winning band, but rather fifteen scruffy programmers and artists. The crowds rapidly dispersed.

One of the highlights of the show for me was the Sony party on the Monday night. Faithless, free drink and 5000 people made for a cool party. They also had three table football tables and this was where the serious work was done. Forget the show – real business is conducted afterwards round dinner and table football tables. I won sixty quid and a publishing deal, but the highlight had to be thrashing of three Americans 10-0 by myself. I’m thinking of moving our office table football table into the boardroom. This way I can do away with meetings and rely on table football to as a means of resolving negotiations.

My only sadness is that I can no longer get drunk at these parties. I think people find it hard to take you seriously if they last saw you face down in a puddle. This doesn’t seem to matter though as there are plenty of ready volunteers for the role of Comedy Drunk Bloke. The best one of the night was the lad I found asleep by the ten-foot tall speaker in front of the main stage. Full marks that man.

One of the other amusing moments of the show was an argument one of my team had with his girlfriend. It was the nature of the argument rather than the event itself that caused the amusement. You see the girlfriend was looking after the press for a certain game, which the boyfriend was keen to see. Girlfriend steadfastly refuses to let boyfriend in to see the game, citing him as a rival developer, at which point things kick off. Most couples row about visiting their in-laws or unfinished DIY; these two argue about computer games. Marvellous.

Throughout the show I met up with various journalists to discuss our plans over the next year. On Tuesday I had lunch with a very hungover editor of a top selling PC magazine. I fed him gallons of Vodka and Redbull in a vain attempt to fight off the effects of a Sony-induced hangover, as he stared queasily at his bacon sandwich. The poor bloke was in no fit state to talk business, so we talked about tabletop wargames instead. It reminded me of the time a couple of years ago when another editor threw up in a cardboard box during a product demonstration on the Activision stand. With a stroke of creative genius he blamed this on Quake II–induced motion sickness, rather than the ten pints of lager he’d drunk the night before. It would be indiscreet to mention names, but it’s a format that gets repeated year on year and will continue to feature in the future. Roll on E3.

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