The Extreme Memory Tournament

Memory Sports
21

Well, that’s the thing I’m really wondering about! I suppose it depends what kind of things pop out of Nelson’s mind…

If I was choosing them, I’d like to throw in some kind of ‘photographic memory’ task. For example, you get to look at a big screen with, say, 20 coloured dots on it, and then for the recall you get a blank screen and have to place dots at exactly the position that you saw them in the memorisation stage. You score, say, 10 points for each one exactly correct, 9 points for everything up to 5 pixels away, 8 points for up to 10 pixels, and so on.

I reserve the right to change this scoring system if and when I learn exactly how big a ‘pixel’ is, but you get the idea. :slight_smile:

22

Its only two weeks!
Don’t miss the draw on Tuesday.

So - what is everyones guesses, whole will rank Top4? Who benefits most from the format and disciplines?

And what kind of strategy do you expect to be best?
I guess tactics will play the biggest role in digits, where most or all of the competitors can do 60 in a minute. So if you see your opponent hit the timer you can take the whole minute to make sure you got all of them. Which again means, if you press the button, you better be sure you get them all right. So repeat everything? Or just go a little slower?

At the memoriad 2012 everyone was expecting amazing times in Speed Cards, since all the Worlds best were there. But despite two attempts only Ben managed to score a time under 30s while the 2nd and 3rd place surprisingly went to Mongolia and Austria and not to one of the top Speed Cards competitors, who all made mistakes.

Edit: Should have set “under 40s” regarding Memoriad times.

23

This is brilliant and definitely fits with the short burst challenge approach to the rest of the competition. Thanks for the thoughts on this. I’m curious to see if there is a mix between auditory and visual tasks. I’m also curious about the 10-minute window for preparing a strategy. This makes me think that the tasks will be somewhat involved or complex :).

24

I´d like to have blindfold rubies cube - or cube memorization. Learned that for a TV show recently and would not mind having to use it again :wink:

25

Did my first USA MC this year and learned about cube-memorization. Pretty neat stuff!

26

In the 50-digit sprint on memocamp, Hannes and Simon have these scores, respectively:

H - 8.26s
S - 7.77s

And in 100-digit sprint:

H - 23.97s
S - 25.19s

In 1:00 words, Katie is the outlier with the almost unbelievable score of 44. Simon’s is 34 and this “memostacker” guy, who has very high scores all over the site and is surely in the top 16, has 31.

In Group A, we have Hannes with the guys ranked 8, 12, and 15. I pick him to win every event. It’ll be a slaughter. Maybe not so much for names, though.

In Group B, I think Christian’s going to take numbers and Ola cards.

Group C and D are more interesting to me.

Andi Bell’s in Group C. It would be great if he had some new tricks up his sleeve, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Jonas is in Group C also. He’s not going to set records, but he’s not going to make mistakes either. I pick him for digits.

The way Boris does cards is good with a second deck to reconstruct, but I would guess it’s riskier for “perfect” memorization. If he can cycle through the images in his head very quickly it might help him here, since he uses 52 objects in 52 loci. So I think we should deduct a little from Boris’ skill on that account and say that there’s no clear favorite for cards. But he’s always been very good at words and names, and having both of those strengths, he’s my favorite for group C, but not by much.

Simon for group D. I am forced to pick Simon and Hannes for their groups no matter who else is with them. I would like it more to see them in the same group for that reason. Extremely curious to see the numbers Zoomy puts up, but unfortunately, the long events are where he really shines. Fast with cards also, but not as fast as Simon.

And Simon is my pick for victor.

27

Memostacker is Boris, BTW.

As the organizer of this event, I probably shouldn’t be naming favorites, but Simon seems like a good guess (or Johannes, or Jonas, or Ben :D). BUT, I would also watch out for Bat-Erdene. Just saying. He is lighting the ■■■■ out of ■■■■ right now (excuse my French).

Also, it’ll be interesting to see how strategies play a part here. There might be some serious upsets here and there. Even I can’t predict the outcomes, having spent a lot of time testing and playing with the software. We will just have to wait and see.

I think consistency will be the key to win here. Who can hit consistently “decent” scores (not the top risky scores, but also not slow/safe scores either) in all the disciplines. There are competitors who have obvious weaknesses. Ben doesn’t like names, but is great at cards and numbers. James who is great at words and names, but not so fast at cards and numbers. Who feels strong at all the events? And who feels confident they can always nail a deck of cards sub-50 seconds, 60 digits in under 30 seconds, 30-40 words, and 20-30 names. I feel like hitting those scores throughout might take you really really far.

I could be totally wrong though. HA.

28

YES → “Just saying. He is lighting the f*** out of s*** right now (excuse my French).”

29

It will be possible to watch the XMT online? I can’t wait for it! :smiley:

30

Not sure exactly if and how that works. Nelson, is it possible to stream online?

31

Lance, you’ll see I cite this response in my latest post on * !

  • [webmaster’s note: the URL was hijacked by spammers, so the link has been removed]
32

Hola amigos,

I will provide a video live-stream from the XMT with moderation. I will post the link here and on Facebook and we will probably embed the video in Memory-Sports.com and the XMT website. You guys can follow the action from everywhere in the world. And you can even ask live question via Twitter and Facebook, which we will try to answer. We will also make live interviews with the X-Mems. It’s going to be legen-only-two-more-days-dary. :slight_smile:

Florian

33

Yes there will be live-streaming AND a specific website to watch exactly the screens of all the competitors while they are memorizing/recalling. You’ll also be able to see all the scores, highlights, and standings throughout the whole competition here, updated by the second. SQUEEEEE!

34

This is EPIC.

35

This is historic.

Best wishes to the competitors and thanks to the organizers. This is extreme.

36

This sounds incredible… :smiley: Will the streaming and everything start around 8 am pacific time?

37

Wow, that’s really incredible, Nelson!

Florian, can I add you on Facebook? I want to ask questions on your live stream!

38

Sure thing, Matteo.

The live stream will start shortly before the competition I guess. We have to figure a couple of things out first, but I trust it will all run smoothly. :wink:

39

All this talk of streaming and windows…where are the links?

40

Hi everyone.

You can watch any match happen live as it happens and see all the stats and standings as they happen. :slight_smile:

Florian is going to be broadcasting a live video feed as well. We will post the link in the morning.

You can’t get any closer to actually being here with both of those things. You will now have an extremely unproductive weekend :smiley: ENJOY