2022 World Tour and 2023 World Championship : Ideas and thoughts

Memory League
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Hi, I know that the world championchip is not over yet but I think it is a good time to start talking about the past year and how to make next world tour better. Season 14 starts in few days and we have many things that haven’t been discussed.

First of all, I want to talk about the structure of the World Championship. We love to see Alex and Andrea playing each other but 3 matches in the same tournament is too much. Much better option would be to divide 16 competitors into two groups of 8 competitors with their own winners and losers bracket. Here is my own suggestion :

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There is also change in losers bracket. Now it makes it more fair and also a third place match is possible to play in this format.

Today (but also few more times during the world tour), there has been a discussion about the Names discipline. This event is not fair, and probably never was, that is why the International names was added, which solved this problem by giving the players exactly the same set of names.
Some people want to remove the Names discipline. But there is one big advantage for it. National names are much more likely to make surprises than international names and weaker players have a chance to beat better ones. Unfortunately this is probably the only one advantage. I would like to hear from you opinions about it.

@Simon will any action be taken of the situation today, when Andrea was complaining that the name was not Italian?
National names should be national of course but the variety of names in each language is different, so in order to even out these differences, names from other languages have been added to the database. But now the idea of national names is losing its original meaning.

Now about the words event. At the world championship match there was a situation where Simon Reinhard complained about one of the german words and the game was repeated after that.
@Simon I remember you said that the word databases will be checked after the championships. Will it be done before the league starts? From my perspective, the Polish database is the best it has ever been, although some words are not fully complaint with the English versions in terms of grammatical form, but it cannot be done perfectly. If the grammatical forms are changed in the database, it may have an opposite effect, worsening them. Changes to the database can only be done properly with the help of a native speaker, but it is impossible to do if we have 40 different languages.

@mohamed22 in the past pointed out the problem of the strong players skipping the league and then playing in the qualifiers for the slam. This disrupts the tournament and causes weaker players to lose the will to participate. I didn’t think yet how to solve this problem but I want to draw your attention to the fact that such an issue was also raised and has not been resolved.
Maybe someone who read this will find a good idea.

If you disagree or have different opinion or want to talk about other stuff please comment.

Thank you to the organisers and all memory athletes for making it happen. I hope to meet everyone next year at the live event.

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Thanks Jan! Lots to consider there.

I think the double-elimination structure this year worked very well - though of course it’s good to consider how things may be improved.

With this year’s structure, if there are two top players who can beat everyone else, they will always end up in the final together. With your structure, that would only happen if those two players were in different groups. If they were in the same group (e.g. because one of them didn’t play many tournaments during the year and slipped a spot in the world rankings), one of them would end up in 3rd place, and 2nd place would go to a weaker competitor.

Another point about your structure is that someone can lose the championship by being beaten only once (in the final). With this year’s format, everyone gets a second chance if they are lose only once.

We’ll be considering the issues in Words and Names in the coming days and weeks. For Names, one idea that comes to mind is reducing the number of names in each language so that all the names are reasonably common and unobjectionable. It could be argued that that changes the nature of the event somewhat, but maybe it’s the best option for fairness across languages.

Reviewing the words databases will be a major (though worthwhile) project, so there probably won’t be any major changes to the words soon.

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If amending the Words lists, then the first step should be to define clear rules about what should and shouldn’t be there as well as rules on how to handle translations, otherwise we end up in situations where a competitor, in the middle of a match, complains about rules that they think should exist instead of rules that actually are meant to be followed.

For IAM competitions it’s either singular nouns or infinitive verbs, that’s it. It would be a shame if we stuck to this on ML though (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc. are fun to memorize!)

Different issue: I believe that @SimonReinhard complained that the corresponding english word only existed in one form but that he got one of several possible forms in German. Do we really want to go down this rabbit hole? I.e. making sure that there’s always only a one-to-one correspondence between any two words in any two languages?? If you take thousands of words in any language and translate them to another language you are likely to end up with duplicates, ie two words in language A translate to the same word in language B. Do you then remove one of the words in language A? And do the same for all combinations of languages? (40 languages, 780 possible pairings)

Add considerations about “bad translations”, i.e. when the translated word isn’t as common as the original one, alternative spellings, word length, etc. This is a huge task!

Happy to help, if needed, btw.

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Something that has not been mentioned, that would be super. Is implementing an improved Recognition system.

Suggesting all that attend The League, get a certain icon ( ONLY if they fulfill the season).
There is more of these Icon/ symbols for those who have completed multiple League Seasons.
-All that participated in the World Championship will get 1 special for that event too.
-Top 16 Canidates for SLAM also.

The IAM Level system should be displayed on one’s “My Performance” page with the same rankings. Only taking the Memory League scores in account. Also with Top scores for the year as well. Such as you saw the spread sheet during the MemorySportsTV Livestream.

The Leader board is great, but there should also be a section with “Best Scores”. Best scores comes from the current year, from Rated matches. Which would make things more fun. That would include 1 best score from 1 discipline. 6 in total of these Best scores. It is another setting you could press, at the Leaderboard section of the site.

These Emojis/Icons and symbols can highlight players whom are active from they who are not. At any time a player can toggle on or of these symbols if they choose.

An achievement section on the players “My performance page” would also be great. Such as Participated in Memory May, Played for 100 days straight. Fulfulled 1 year of League season. Participated in all SLAM events. This is also probably Not something that those who have multiple accounts would be able to attain. This is just adding another fun feature to the site. How many players stop playing when there is no SLAM or League season close by?

You can find various ways to recoginze other players in multiple ways in the Sports world. From Tennis to even Chess. In chess they also have titles, as an example. Not only for the top 2 players, which is great; but having for various levels as well to get much more Inspiration to perform great for newcomers and existing athletes as well.

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I like the idea of more stats in My performance section and also top scores in leaderboard. I hope it will be implemented one day.

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Hi all,

Great ideas already for the next World Tour :).

Maybe some short background regarding the Words trial where I notified the supervisors: a longer time ago, there was an exchange between Simon Orton and several others (maybe here, cannot currently find it, but it was definitely in writing) and it was about the fact some languages like English and Japanese etc… only have one form for certain words while German or Spanish etc… have several forms. As far as I remember, it was agreed back then that Word forms would be reduced to one and Simon Orton did that. To me, that felt as good a rule as when it were written down in a comprehensive codex, very reminsicent of the specific rules there are at the classical events (concrete and abstract nouns, infinitive verbs). Since then I cannot recall an incident where the Words (mostly the superlative form) did not have one form, namely the female one (größte, beste etc…, ending on an e). I assumed that this would have been done not only for German but for all other multi-form languages, too. I only train in German, so I did not check that. I felt I could fully rely on that, also in a match.

Going from this background, in my Words match it went down exactly to such a word and it being decisive: 50 words for my opponent, 49 for me (with faster time), and my only mistake was “wenigste” (a superlative, English: fewest) instead of the original “wenigsten”. I even had “wenigsten” standing at first but then changed it because I thought ‘no, it cannot be that due to that rule’. And right after the end of the recall time, a spectator wrote in the match chat why there had been multiple forms for the adjective. That also encouraged me to bring that topic to the supervisors.

The problem was that during the talks with Simon Orton it became clear that this reduction to one form had only been done for German (while I had assumed it had been done for all similar languages with multiple forms). In the heat of the moment, I still felt that my protest was ok because the rule had affected my result specifically in a very concrete and adverse way and I had trusted it for my own language. But looking back, with some distance and with more time to consider, I would not protest again in the same situation with the knowledge I now have.

I think that episode definitely showed that clear rules are needed for if and when protests are possible (and the potential consequences), for every discipline.

Also, I hope we can find some solution to address some issues like multiple Words forms for all languages. I feel at least aiming to have adjectives only in one form (male, female or neutral) would be a big help for many, could be done rather quickly by a native speaker and without cross-referencing between languages (thus avoiding what Sylvain has mentioned).

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It’s just an idea, but what do you think of merging Names and International Names into one discipline again? Each game could show 15 national and 15 international names in random order.

This way there would still be easier national names for beginners and spectators, but also harder ones for the top athletes.

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But the final match should be final, no second chance. We can make double elimination which will determine who goes to the final but then the winner of the whole tournament could be a person who didn’t lost any single match.

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I don’t support the idea of merging Names and international names together; they are completely different!
Words are always in different forms!
I don’t see any reasonable reason in having a word in a single form; if words are in single form; it will be very noticeable to spectators who aren’t in the sport and they will surely criticize the model!
Besides, We are memory athletes of course!
I support the idea of best scores in each discipline board; it’s really going to be cool!
The current features on ML should stay like that; Kudos to Simon and other moderators for a job well done!
A surprise section on ML will also be very good and challenging!
Let’s make Memory sport grow!
And we can only do this in Unison
Just my 1 cent anyways!
I will love to see your opinions on this comrades!
Cheers!

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One issue I had this year was with the Slams. This isn’t meant as a slight towards anyone, so please don’t take offense. Seeing the same top-level memory athletes in every single slam got a little old to me. It sort of goes against the spirit of them being regional when the same top athletes show up and dominate it every time. I think that memory athletes who are maybe a bit lower ranked should get priority to participate in their regional slam. Someone whose local slam is the North American or Asian shouldn’t lose a spot to someone from Europe in my opinion (just an example not meant to be directed at anyone).

I do not have any solutions as to how we solve this. But to me, the point of the slams is to let locals get a bit of the spot light, featured, etc. and so they can have friends, family, loved ones etc tune in, cheer them on. These regional athletes losing spots to someone in a different region who participates in every single slam and season doesn’t seem right to me.

Anyways, just some thoughts I’ve had.

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I think that when the Slams format appeared and the World Championship held at the end of the year, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals in the first divisions began to lose their significance. In addition, this greatly lengthens each season and creates a number of problems. It will be much more interesting to watch the battle of the best participants when it happens less frequently. I would have been much more looking forward to the World Cup final if I was hungry for matches between Andrea and Alex.

I’m excited about the idea of ​​a consolation brace in the World Championships. It will be great to do this in Slams.

Great idea, @BradenExplosion , to do Slams for local members. But there are 2 problems here:

  1. Confirmation of the continent. to which the participant actually belongs.

  2. Some Slams may have fewer local participants than required. In this case, you can arrange a qualification for representatives of other continents. But here, too, a problem arises. Slams will allow you to accumulate points to compile a ranking, on the basis of which it is decided who participates in the World Cup. Whoever takes part in two Slams will have an advantage.

Maybe consider creating local divisions in league seasons? Then Slams can not be changed.
It will also simplify communication between division members. It will be easier to agree on a match if the participants live in close time zones.

@zonjan You can make such a rule when dropouts from one bracket end up in the consolation bracket of the other. Then re-crossing within the same brackets with the strongest will be excluded. But does it make sense when in the final everything will be almost the same as now?

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Yes, @SimonReinhard. This problem is very common for the Russian language. I also often come across parts of speech that are excluded from the competition in English. This is due to a mistranslation. Much that in other languages ​​is expressed through a particle, an auxiliary verb or pronoun in Russian is expressed through the form of a word. That is, it is equivalent to memorizing a few words. changing meaning in other languages.

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Since we are talking about bad translations in international names, I will add a little about international names in Cyrillic. It’s still a problem. Such names are hard in themselves, but become even more hard and illogical due to poor translation.

The problem is that names are first of all translated into Cyrillic, starting from the phonetic version of the names, and not from the written one. Therefore, the very approach to translate ALL names from Latin to Cyrillic according to the rules of the English language is not correct. For example, it is strange for me to see Russian names. affected by the reverse transfer. Their sound sometimes takes the most unpredictable form.

@Simon I found a solution for this. It’s a little more complicated, but works great.

You will have to take the base of each individual language and use the unique Cyrillic transcriptor from the desired language directly. I tested it for Spanish, Italian, German and Arabic. The result is excellent!

The problem could be a jumbled name base on the MemoryLeague. If the names in the database are not separated by origin, you will have to recreate the entire database again.

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Wow very nice idea!!!

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It seems like an exciting idea, but in generall there is a lack of Memory Competition if we should exclude it like that. I believe the proper way would be to just add Regional Competitions/ Continentals.

6 (~7) Competitions over a year is quite little. ( in my opinion)
( I did miss 1 competition I know, but I did a personal choice at that weekend as what I did want to experience.)
Roughly ~44 matches for those who participated in The League and Slams, all of them. Counting that you get to the finals. Lets say 1 match takes 1 hour. That is 1 hour. That is probably equal to 1 training session on a weekend.

If we should add Regional Competitions they should be played out much quicker then, so it does not lose the momentum. Maybe over a 1 week or a weekend. The thing is, they do not have to be that BIG the additional Competitions we do decide to add, on that we already have.

Another question came to mind; should not other types of competition count in as a world ranking in general? Such as the Japan or Russian Memory League competition were held for other countries as well. Remotely played, if I am not mistaken.
We do have both the IAM Level System in the IAM Stats website, and we also do have a somewhat of a Leaderboard for Memory League Competition stats, pre 2020.
So, World Tour Ranking - and the “old” Ranking as well?
Because the “old” ranking system would take into account Top Scores performed in a competition. Where as in World Tour, you do not need Top Scores to win a competition as it has its strategy element in it to Win.

Also on the IAM site, I see no problem of adding an Official “Online Ranking” for the sports, since we were successfully able to do World Championship with even a sponsor, and since 23-24 May of 2020, it has been shown to work.

-Just some adds to make this sport even more awesome!

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Totally agree with that

At first, last year, I thought it was like that and I admit I was surprised I could register for other slams than my own continent.

Mullen vs Muzii is a very nice match but every slam, every competition, it ends up like this when there are others athlete that are so good and full of potential that deserve to win major stuff.

Idk if thats a possibility to open major slams for everyone to qualify for world championship but the regional slams would be a different thing, just for people from this region

This might be very motivating for a lot of athlete

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Thanks Celine, I agree. And Niklas, I don’t think we should exclude everyone not from that region. But if an athlete from that region that is slightly lower ranked can make it into a slam, I do believe they should get priority over a higher ranked non-local participant. There’d have to be a ranking cut-off at some point though as they still need to be skilled enough to be competitive. Like, we can’t be bumping a high-level athlete for someone ranked in the 300’s. And if there are spots to fill then we open the doors to other non-local athletes.

Seeing the same matchups over and over again gets a bit dull and it makes the slams just start looking like the division 1 seasonal playoffs. The slams are meant to be a special event, and after the first one, I became a bit less interested in them when I noticed the same athletes competing in every single one. Again, I don’t want to sound disrespectful or rude towards anyone, so please don’t take it personally if you were one of them.

One of the reasons I didn’t compete in the other slams, other than the hours being insane for me, was that I didn’t consider them MY slams. I live in North America, that was my unique opportunity to shine and compete against my fellow athletes from here I believe. I do realize the NA Slam does, at this time, need the outside participation as we don’t have as many athletes as the other regions.

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The initial idea of the Slams was a tournament series like in Tennis with their Grand Slams. The name for these events was obviously because of the time zone they took place in . And locals of course have the advantage of playing at more convenient times. So the point of the Slams so far was to have a global tournament series in which everyone from around the World can participate. Having regional tournaments which are more restricted to local competitors would be great but that was not the intention when creating these Slams.

In Tennis the criterium for qualification is the World Ranking even though they are called French Open etc. In these tournaments like in other sports too the same people meet very often and as it is in other sports too that might feel a bit boring. However isn’t it the purpose of a sport to watch the best competing against the best? If it is Alex vs Andrea all over the place then it is up to all the others to close this gap.

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Well said comrade!
I love the last part" it’s up to others to close the gap"
Really spot on! @Hannes

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Btw. I’m in favor of having these more regional or continental competitions in addition to the World Tour. Like they are already taking place in Japan. In presence would be super cool but I think having them remotely is would be also great. However, I think taking care what is needed to host these competitions has to come from the athletes in this specific regions. Setting dates, contacting competitors etc. can’t be done by the “global” ML Team. They will support but the major work has to be done by others.

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