Actually, I'm too tired and headachy to write at length about my trip to my old house tonight - I've only just got home and I've got to be up early tomorrow for work. So I'll leave it till tomorrow except to say that it genuinely looks so much smaller now, I was amazed! Especially since I lived there till I was twenty, brief dalliances with university aside, and visited it frequently until I was 23. I haven't grown significantly since then, as far as I know, so why do I remember the place being so much bigger?
Instead, I'll post tonight that the prize fund for the World Memory Championship has just been announced (woo!) and there are very nice prizes for the top ten competitors (double woo!). I quote:
The total prize fund will be US$ 30,000.
This will be divided in the following way.
The World Memory Champion 2007 will receive US$10,000
The Silver Medallist will receive US$ 5,000
The Bronze Medallist will receive US$ 3,000
Competitors achieving 4th to 10th place in the competition with each
receive US$1,000
I am sure you will agree that this exciting news will dramatically raise the profile
of the Mind Sport of Memory and contribute to making the 2007 World Championships
in Bahrain the best yet.
Our grateful thanks go to Shaikh Hamad and Intelnacom for their tremendous support
Presumably the remaining $5,000 will be embezzled by someone in a position of power. But even if the prize fund is actually only $25,000, that still makes it the biggest ever by a long way! And since so few of the world's best memorisers will be turning up, anyone who can scrape together the cash for a flight to Bahrain stands a very good chance of making back a good part of the cost. Hopefully this'll inspire a few last-minute entries (and hopefully the WMSC don't really mean it when they say registrations close a month before the competition, because that's just silly).
FANTASTIC NEWS :)
ReplyDeleteMaybe the 5000$ are for the winners of the disciplines.
Man.. I already see it coming: failing both trials of Speed Cards I am not loosing third place again - but also 2000 US$...... ;)
Hast Du letztes Mal den dritten Platz erst bei den Karten verloren?
ReplyDeleteIch werde jetzt wohl auch teilnehmen, wenn auch anscheinend der auf der Seite angegebene "official carrier", mit dem ich heute telefoniert habe, mir auch nur einen Flug für 550 € anbieten kann (Das billigste Angebot ist 517 €).
But why should we complain: The prize money is fantastic, let us just hope that we can accustom to the climate, there are similar precedences, see Lasker-Capablanca etc...
A special prize for a world record would be cool.
By the way, Ben: Is your record still 420 at the speed numbers?
Bye,
Simon