The first World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) were held in Beijing, China from October 3 to 18, 2008, about two months after the Olympic Games.^[1][2][3] They were sponsored and organised by the International Mind Sports Association with the General Administration of Sport of China and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport.^[4][5]

Five mind sports participated in the first Games: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), go (weiqi), and xiangqi (Chinese chess).^[6][7] Thirty-five gold medals were contested by 2,763 competitors from 143 countries.^[8]

According to the World Bridge Federation, it incorporated the World Team Olympiad (1960–2004) and some established youth events in the Games "as the stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of Olympic Games (after the 'regular' Olympics and the Paralympics)".^[9]

• 35 set of medals :
• Bridge (9)
• Draughts (10)
• Chess (5)
• Go (6)
• Xiangqi (5)

The World Bridge Federation organized eleven events in Beijing that constituted the "World Bridge Games" including nine WMSG medal events. Six were among the established world bridge championships contested in even-number years.^[a] The other three were for "youth" under age 28, a one-time compromise.^[9][b] More than 1400 players participated, about half of all players in the Games. Entries from European Bridge League countries^[c] won 22 of the 27 medals, led by Norway with six medals including two gold.

WMSG medalists in bridge

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Open Teams	Italy	England	Norway
Women Teams	England	China	United States
Open Individual	Tor Helness	Geir Helgemo	Andrey Gromov
Women Individual	Catarina Midskog	Anne-Fréderique Lévy	Yan Ru
Youth Individual	Salih Murat Anter	Radu Nistor	Lars Arthur Johansen
Youth Pairs	Mehmet Remzi Şakirler / Melih Osman Şen	Lotan Fisher / Ron Schwartz	Joanna Krawczyk / Piotr Tuczyński
under-28 Teams	Norway	Poland	China
under-26 Teams	Denmark	Poland	Norway
under-21 Teams	France	England	China

Two other events were continued by the WBF from its quadrennial "Olympiad" program, as part of its new "World Bridge Games" but separate from the WMSG (non-medal events sharing the facilities). Japan won the third Senior International Cup, for national teams of seniors (age 58+). 'Yeh Bros' from Chinese Taipei won the second Transnational Mixed Teams, for teams of any nationality comprising mixed pairs, one man and one woman.^[10]

The World Chess Federation organized ten events in Beijing, all of them in rapid or blitz chess.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's Individual Blitz	Martyn Kravtsiv	Yuriy Drozdovsky	Hristos Banikas
Women's Individual Blitz	Alexandra Kosteniuk	Antoaneta Stefanova	Hou Yifan
Men's Individual Rapid	Bu Xiangzhi	Anton Korobov	Zhang Zhong
Women's Individual Rapid	Antoaneta Stefanova	Zhao Xue	Huang Qian
Mixed Pairs Blitz	Carlos Matamoros Franco / Martha Fierro	Krishnan Sasikiran / Tania Sachdev	Valeriy Aveskulov / Tatjana Vasilevich
Mixed Pairs Rapid	Ni Hua / Hou Yifan	Đào Thiên Hải / Lê Kiều Thiên Kim	Ehsan Ghaem-Maghami / Atousa Pourkashiyan
Men's Teams Blitz	Hungary	China	Ukraine
Women's Teams Blitz	Russia		Vietnam
Men's Teams Rapid		Ukraine	Iran
Women's Teams Rapid		Ukraine	Russia

Under the auspices of the World Draughts Federation 288 players participated in five medal events in Beijing. There was a strong regional showing as twelve of the fifteen medals were won by players from Russia, Latvia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
International Draughts 100sq (Men)	Alexander Georgiev	Alexander Getmanski	Guntis Valneris
International Draughts 100sq (Women)	Zoja Golubeva	Tanja Chub	Tamara Tansykkuzhina
Russian Draughts 64sq (Women)	Viktoriya Motrichko	Elena Miskova	Julia Romanskaia
Brazilian Draughts 64sq (Men)	Oleg Dashkov	Ion Dosca	Sergey Belosheev
Checkers (Mixed)	Alex Moiseyev	Ron King	Raivis Paegle

Under the auspices of the International Go Federation 560 players participated in six medal events in Beijing. South Korea won half of the 18 medals and all were swept by competitors from Eastern Asia.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's Individual	Kang Dongyun 7p[d]	Park Jungsang 9p	Li Zhe 6p
Women's Individual	Song Ronghui 1p	Lee Minjin 5p	Pak Chi-eun 9p
Open	Jo Tae-Won 7d [11]	Ham Youngwoo 7d	Lee Yong Hee 6d
Men's Team	South Korea
Women's Team		South Korea
Pair Go	Huang Yizhong 7p ／ Fan Weijing 2p	Chou Chun-Hsun 9p ／ Hsieh Yi-Min 4p	On So Jin 4p ／ Lee Ha Jin 3p

Xiangqi, or "Chinese chess", was the fifth sport to participate in Beijing, where 125 players participated in five events. Although the World Xiangqi Federation was not a member of IMSA at the time, the sport was included in the Beijing games as a traditional Chinese sport with a large number of players, especially in China. The host country won all five gold medals.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Rapid (Men)	Wang Yang	Jiang Chuan	Zhao Ruquan
Individual (Women)	Wang linna	Zhao Guanfang	Ngô Lan Hương
Individual (Men)	Xu Yinchuan	Hong Zhi	Look Kongdwa
Team (Women)		Australia	Vietnam
Team (Men)		Vietnam	Hong Kong

Teams from the host country China won one-quarter of the 105 medals, including one-third of the gold.

  *   Host nation (China)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China (CHN)*	12	8	6	26
2	Russia (RUS)	4	1	3	8
3	South Korea (KOR)	2	4	3	9
	Ukraine (UKR)	2	4	3	9
5	Norway (NOR)	2	1	3	6
6	Turkey (TUR)	2	0	0	2
7	England (ENG)	1	2	0	3
8	Bulgaria (BUL)	1	1	0	2
	France (FRA)	1	1	0	2
10	Latvia (LAT)	1	0	2	3
11	United States (USA)	1	0	1	2
12	Denmark (DEN)	1	0	0	1
	Ecuador (ECU)	1	0	0	1
	Hungary (HUN)	1	0	0	1
	Italy (ITA)	1	0	0	1
	North Korea (PRK)	1	0	0	1
	Sweden (SWE)	1	0	0	1
18	Vietnam (VIE)	0	2	3	5
19	Moldova (MDA)	0	2	1	3
	Poland (POL)	0	2	1	3
21	Australia (AUS)	0	1	0	1
	Barbados (BAR)	0	1	0	1
	Chinese Taipei (TPE)	0	1	0	1
	India (IND)	0	1	0	1
	Israel (ISR)	0	1	0	1
	Netherlands (NED)	0	1	0	1
	Romania (ROU)	0	1	0	1
28	Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF)	0	0	2	2
	Iran (IRN)	0	0	2	2
	Japan (JPN)	0	0	2	2
31	Greece (GRE)	0	0	1	1
	Malaysia (MAS)	0	0	1	1
	Singapore (SIN)	0	0	1	1
Totals (33 entries)		35	35	35	105

• World Mind Sports Games
• International Mind Sports Association
• Mind sport
• Mind Sports Organisation