That’s the whole reason I tried pao in the first place. Because I thought if andrea world champion able to set some great scores by pao then I can too.
But it didn’t worked for me. So I chose 2 card system.
Anyway I didn’t give up my hopes in pao yet, maybe someday I will be good in pao.
@Oldeman_Mnemonics, good to have you on the forum!
I was annoyed by all the chatter about who did better with what system. Any system will be effective when practiced often. But I still wanted an answer for efficiency as that seems to drive people’s decisions. So I did a detailed study. The three-digit system did slightly better than the PAO system. You can look at my in-depth analysis and method of number peg systems on my github website.
I use the Ben System for both numbers and cards (although I convert the cards in my own way that’s different from the classic 2-card Ben System). It became obvious very quickly that this was faster and better (for me, anyway) than both my previous number system (3-digit category system) and my PA card system. Before I switched, I was memorising decks of cards in 40-50 seconds (struggled to get a full deck at the XMT), and at a similar level with numbers. I had practised the Ben System phonetics for a few months, but then once I decided to switch, it only took around 2 weeks to beat my previous scores, and very soon I was under 30 seconds in Cards and could get 80 digits in a similar time. This was before I even finished creating or learning my “images” (I prefer to call them “words” as they aren’t always visual). With the Ben System you can just come up with words spontaneously to fit the syllable (it’s easier with some syllables than others, of course).
Hi Guys
I don’t intend to compete but which of those systems is the easiest to start with?
My very first system was the 1 digit rhyming pegs (1 = bun, 2 = shoe, 3 = tree etc).
I learned the major system and built a set of 2 digit images when reading one of Harry Lorayne’s books and have been using it ever since along with the “link” system which I find easier to use than the memory palace.
I don’t try to split every number into two digit chunks, and instead just try to construct suitable words on the fly which might cover more digits.
It works ok for me and is very easy, but perhaps other people have more success with other methods.
Did you make the transition to 3 digit major?
Not yet
I am currently using this method. I guess this is the easiest. (Actually I don’t like cards memorizing at all, and I don’t think any real life applications in it. So I never even consider to practice seriously) and because I was participating in memory league seasons, at one point I always lose because of my card games so I thought let’s make an easiest system which takes a really less time.
So here is it , One card peg method(Anyway I did in lazy way, but I think if you crazy interested it you can achieve nice speed in no time by this)
Hearts - H
Clubs - K
Spade - S
Diamond - D
For numbers = any no system letters that you are using.
Ex - 
2 - car
A - cat
Hi Katie, I’m new to memory sports, but I obviously know who you are and how good you are in the game. That’s why I recently started to eagerly read your posts, wishing to find wise advice to improve myself. And I definitely learned a lot. Thank you very much!
I wanted to reply to this post in particular since after reading it I’ve tried in the last few days to adapt Ben System to the Italian language (I’m from Rome, Italy) to memorize numbers.
As a linguist (I’m a Chinese language teacher and I do research in the field of phonology and phono-graphemic conversion) I am doubting that the Ben System could work well for Italian.
I’ve tried to set some rules of conversion to fit the Italian phonotactics, coming up with something like this:
As you can see, the phonetic values are in IPA, for the sake of univocity and clearness.
Anyway, the main problem is this: if we follow the rule CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant), it is undoubtedly easier and quicker to come up with syllables. But, while in English you have plenties of very frequent monosyllabic words (thus, with a “3digit-syllable” you can easily find a word), in Italian we have on average much longer words. In fact, with this adaptation of Ben System you can find existing syllables in Italian, but very few monosyllabic words.
Thus, I tried to see what happens when you pair two following “3digit-syllables”, and I made twenty or so random attempts, with the result that more than half of the two syllables combinations that I got do not appear in Italian words…(epic fail) 
So…I was wondering: what if I take the syllable obtained by the conversion with BS only as the first syllable of a longer word/image? Then, in de-coding, I will only transform the CVC of the first syllable of that word/image. I will try, still, but in the meanwhile, I wanted to ask you if you see any problem in such a way of encoding/decoding by only using the “3digits-syllable” as the starting of a word.
Don’t know if it makes any sense, I’m still a newbie here, and I’m still trying to get under 3 minutes with a deck of cards…let’s not mention numbers, hahaha. 
Thank you for sharing your experience and for being an inspiration. 
Best,
e.
p.s. I took much inspiration from this post of another user who already tried to adapt BS to Italian:
Hi, thanks for the nice words and great to see you here and on ML.
Yes, I often use longer words, otherwise there’s no way I could find monosyllabic words to fit all the Ben System syllables. E.g. 076 is “seesh” but I use the word “seashell”.
Thank you for your quick reply! I’ll try, then!
Best,
e.
Hi, JohnnyMnemonic
I just released my own original memory system and you may want to check it out here simonluisi.com
I call it the Word Structure Memory Methode and it’s quite fun to use, and somehow easier to use (I think) compared to the other methods and that helps with getting motivated to build a system.
Did you tried memorizing by your system ??
I guess you are just thinking that these rules will boost your speed. But in reality this will decrease your speed.
Yeah you said it tooks you weeks to make it, If someone read all details in some minutes, they will not realise the effectiveness. But I am saying really it’s not useful in faster numbers memorizing.
And 1 most important thing you will not able to use this effectively in spoken numbers event.
eva - 868
Zoe - 023
bee - 932
if you think short word will boost speed than it’s not, you can read ben system, although in ben system words are short but do you think short word will increase your speed ?, Okay at one point it’s true, but above your examples sounds like total random.
Every case have different rules.
More like you made a lots of rules.
Last thing I will say is , I am not saying bad about your system, I am just stating my opinion in your system. Because I use letters system in numbers as well, and I tried lots of approaches. (first thing & most important thing, you made literally lots of rules 
)
I use only y rule, and I am using it before reading your system. looks like we both reach at same point here , in y letter.
But here too, you said
553 - lily (so basically your rule is different here and you added two rules for y letter.)
Hi
It’s Majors for me. Thanks to those clever people from 400 years ago for coming up with it. I could never have done that.
I can, if I use memorable images, memorise up to a 1000 items on a list of facts if I need to - I don’t.
I do have a few lists of about a 100 items, such as all the winners of the Tour de France.
It’s great and I get a lot of fun out of making weird pictures that will stay with me forever.
Thanks
Pierre
I use the Major System for my 3 digit system (images from 000-999), and the Shadow System for cards (which is a 2 card system). The SS is based off phonetics from the Major System for the most part. For binary, I used a 4-3-3 which also pulls from my images for numbers and cards, plus I had to create some unique images as there are some phonetics that occur in my binary system that don’t in numbers or cards. In total I need 1381 images (had to create 3 unique images for dates as well).
Here is a link to a post I made in 2020 with a link to a spreadsheet I made for my system. There are links to the original SS and Binary posts there as well, both authored and created by @LociInTheSky
