A new title was just created by the World Memory Sports Council called International Grand Master of Memory.
The title gets awarded to anyone with over 6,000 competition points, and there are only 16 International Grandmasters. Check it out… 
I just saw a couple of GMM stating on profile or on blog to be “International Grandmaster of Memory” while not being in this (official?) list of 15 persons: Grandmasters
Is that list not up to date? (…)
I think it’s up to date. Whose missing from the list? Maybe they are members here…
There are three Master of Memory titles now:
The official extended syntax for the IGM seems to be “International Grandmaster of Memory”.
Here are several names who I saw associated with that title who I don’t find in the official list of IGMs (see end of this page: Grandmasters):
Andy Fong, David Thomas, Kevin Horsley, Michael Tipper, John Lewis, Erwin Balines, Mark Castaneda.
Some of them may not be aware of it while others used it deliberately.
Some sources:
Andy Fong:
David Thomas:
David Thomas
Kevin Horsley:
Kevin Horsley
Michael Tipper:
Michael Tipper
John Lewis:
John Lewis
Erwin Balines and Mark Castaneda:
Erwin Balines, Mark Castaneda
I wonder if there is some confusion over the name change. International Master of Memory is what used to be “Grand Master of Memory” and it might be mistaken with International Grand Master of Memory, though anyone who got GMM before the name change is still a GMM, I think.
I think it would have been simpler to keep “Grand Master of Memory” at the same standards as always, and then add new titles that mean something else. It’s confusing at the moment…
Maybe someone else knows more details about it. I might be the one who is confused…
The old Grand Master title used to be referred to as “International Grand Master of Memory”, in line with the chess title it’s based on. There wasn’t any kind of official communication to the old GMs that they’re not allowed to call themselves IGMs any more. Frankly, the whole GM thing is so confusing nowadays, nobody knows what’s what…
I was thinking about this a lot and I still don’t get. So far I thought there are only two titles now: IMM and IGM, while the GMM doesn’t exist anymore.
IMM: requires <2min Speed Cards, >1000 digits in 60 min Numbers and >10 decks in 60 min Cards (old GMM)
IGM: 6.000 championship points barrier
GMM: doesn’t exist anymore
Is that right, or do I have to resign from my arbiter level two title?
Sorry, but as Ben already stated: this is super confusing.
You have to resign, I’m afraid, Florian.
GMM is now achieved by (I think) being one of the top three people who score over 5000 points at a world championship who aren’t already IGMs or GMMs.
It was never announced to anyone, but the people in power talked about it at last year’s WMC as if it was already in effect, and only dropped it when they found out that nobody had heard of it - it remains to be seen if it’ll be used again this year.
It sounds like a Dominic idea; he’s always wanted to make the WMC more significant, since we have so many other competitions nowadays. But he probably didn’t take the other titles into consideration, or the fact that anyone who’s ever been made a GMM, under the old rules, still counts as one now.
It would be better to scrap these titles and come up with some new ones, I think…
Dear Imbuter2000,
Thanks for pointing that out for me. It’s quite fascinating that someone spends so much time digging out my history.
For your information, when I received my title in 2011, it was still “International Grandmaster of Memory” back then.
In the WMC2013, the council announced that there will be a new system for the title, i.e. IMM, GMM, and IGM. For competitors who achieved 6,000 points can maintain their title as IGM, and for those who didn’t, they are referred as GMM.
To honour the changes, I have immediately edited all my personal info that I am aware of, such as my Facebook about, my business cards, the Hong Kong Memory Sports Council official site and the Hong Kong Open Memory Championships site after I learned about the new system. Interestingly, these frequently update website did not catch your eyes.
Still, I believe I have missed a couple of them. I apologize for that. Thanks for your detailed screen captures, I have now updated my never-updated personal website, my twitter account, mnemotechnics forum info and even the YouTube clip description. However, as for some of them appear to be some newspapers about me, I don’t think I would be able to ask them to reprint a paper from a few years back. In particular, I did not deliberately gave them any incorrect information as I indeed was an IGM at that time.
For David Thomas, Kevin Horsley, Michael Tipper, John Lewis (Louis?), Erwin Balines and Mark Castaneda, they were all International Grandmaster of Memory before the new title system. Since some of them do not compete anymore, they may not aware of the changes. Also, it seems that many of your screen captures are published before 2013, so they were still IGM back then.
I am sure what you are doing is out of good intention rather than an accusation. I also very concern about the abuse of the use of the title. Especially, there are many people who have claimed themselves as IGM when they are not even IMM or GMM.
I welcome any other questions you have regarding the new system.
Regards,
Andy Fong
For the sake of truth I gave a look with web.archive.org to how the title was officially named in the past and I saw that it was always “Grandmaster of Memory” or “Grand Master of Memory”, abbreviated in “GM” and then “GMM”.
Am I wrong? are there other official sources?
On Jan 2012:
jan/2012
On Oct 2012:
—
On Oct 2013 the naming was still that:
–
On Jan 2013 there was only the abbreviation “GM”:
—
On Jan 20th 2013 they became all “GMM”:
—
“GMM” remained “GMM” even after “IGM” was introduced for the >6000p athletes.
The titles all seem inflated and that speaks to the early development of the sport. If someone can start in the 20s and meet the norms in a couple of years, that’s not a grandmaster of anything. A grandmaster is someone who starts at age 6, does not attend normal school and spends almost all time training and competing and maybe has some talent to begin with. Then maybe in their 20s or later they reach the level of grandmaster, but very few on the same path—and there are thousands who are—will make the cut. That’s the situation where terms like “grandmaster” might make sense.
Memory sports simply don’t have the popularity and social acceptability to support that kind of youth lifestyle. Of course, if the powers that be want to be like a tiddlywinks grandmaster—which is probably harder to achieve—so be it.
Dear Imbuter2000,
In the past, we usually use GM or GMM as the abbreviation and called grandmaster even the CERTIFICATE is written as INTERNATIONAL GRANDMASTER OF MEMORY.
Therefore, competitors may call themselves as “International Grandmaster of Memory” when they have met all three criteria as International Grandmaster of Memory is not entirely a “New Title”. Both terms “International Grandmaster of Memory” or “Memory Grandmaster” have been used to describe this recognition in the field of memory. This is also the reason why the statistics website has the abbreviation GMM.
The reason that the WMSC broke down the grandmaster into three levels is because the number of grandmaster has suddenly increased significantly since 2011. Therefore, to maintain the prestige of grandmaster as the ultimate permanent accolade in memory, and to grant recognition for achievement at a lower level than GMM but still outstanding, WMSC introduced the “New Title” “International MASTER of Memory”, which will follow the previous criteria, and redefine the qualification criteria for “Grandmaster”.
The announcement of the new system was made on Facebook around July 2013 by Jennifer. But since not everyone is using Facebook, another announcement was made at the World Memory Championships 2013 at December last year and on the statistic website.
Refer to your comment about ““GMM” remained “GMM” even after “IGM” was introduced for the >6000p athletes.”, since the changes did not happen until late 2013, so it’s normal to see GMM in Jan 2013, as IGM and IMM wasn’t even introduced at that time. But if you take a look at the archive after October 2013, you should be able to see the IGM.
Anyway, I will pass your concerns to the World Memory Sports Council and find a way to improve the system and the announcement.
Thanks Andy for showing the certificate.
I didn’t know it, so I’m with you and Ben, the authorities are the only responsible for this confusion.
I don’t even know what they could do now to remove the confusion…
it is in certificate NME
Ninja Memory of Elephant !!!
If it was copied from Chess it should be (IM / GM / IGM ) + (of Memory) = IMM / GMM / IGMM
hah!
So, were wondering any updates on IGM, IMM or GMM?
Currently there has been new World Champions and also wonderful performances from many talented athletes; but I fail to find an increasement of these titles from athletes besides what I can find from GAMA website, which has not been updated in years.
For IGM, does it still rings true that you will need to reach atleast 6000 points based upon the current Millenium Standard in a competiton?
Is there any current list where you can find all achievers of these Titles?
There has not been much talk at all about this so were wondering about this topic. Would Love to hear more talk about Recognition 