I just got back from Vienna for the 2018 IAM World Memory Championship.
I’m happy to say that I finished in 5th place this year!
Wow…even I’m surprised by this result.
Just for context, I finished in 23rd place last year in Jakarta (but there were more people).
The Championship consists of 10 events over 3 days.
I broke my personal competition record in all 10 events. Consistent training and pushing my limits is what took me there. It’s been a great year of improvement and training for me.
DAY 1
15 min Names & Faces
30 min Binary Numbers (1’s & 0’s)
5 min Random Images
60 minute Numbers
DAY 2
5 min Speed Numbers
15 min Words
60 min Cards
DAY 3
5 min Dates
Spoken Numbers (#’s spoken at a rate of 1 digit/sec)
Speed Cards (fastest u can memorize deck of cards)
My results:
5th place overall!
I also finished with the silver medal in the 5 minute Images event. I tried for the World Record, but came up 18 points short. I scored 395, which is the 3rd best score ever.
Full competition results here: https://iam-stats.org/competition.php?id=WMC2018
This is a sample of what the Image event looks like (memorizing rows of images in order):
I also memorized:
- 120 international names & faces in 15 mins (4th place).
- 22 decks of cards in 1 hour (4th place).
- 1830 digit # in 1 hr (5th place).
- 282 digit # in 5 mins (6th place).
- A deck of cards in 42.4 secs (4th place).
- A list of 193 words in 15 mins (6th place)
This is me concentrating before the spoken numbers event (one of the hardest events). Your score ends when you make your first mistake. I memorized a string of 97 digits spoken at 1 digit per second, but when I was writing them out I made a mistake and switched 2 numbers…so I scored 66.
Vienna was such a beautiful city.
Lots of historic buildings, churches, palaces…
And everywhere you looked, there was a Christmas market.
I think I saw 8 different ones.
December is a good time of the year to visit this part of the world…
Like everyone else, I drank Glühwein (which was basically hot red wine with a taste of rum and spice) out of a festive mug. I enjoy red wine, but not so much rum. But it tasted better simply by being in a different culture.
With German friends, and fellow memory competitors, at the Schönbrunn Palace (it has 1,441 rooms!)
Meeting and competing with people from all over the world is a very enriching and unforgettable experience. If you haven’t traveled the world…you must do it in your lifetime.
After the 2014 World Championship in China, I ate at an Indian restaurant with British, a German, a Mongolian, a Costa Rican, and Americans.
After this year in Austria, I ate at an Italian restaurant with French, Germans, a Scot, and Brits.
Fun global experiences 🙂
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