It's derived from the English words "MENtal math", "MEMORy", "ReaD" and "olympIAD"

At least that's what the website says. Personally, I suspect the name "Memoriad" is just derived from "memory" and "olympiad", like it was when other people coined the name years ago. Apart from that, though, I'm all in favour of the Memoriad, which happens in Istanbul on the 1st and 2nd of November, practically as soon as we get back from the WMC.

The coolest part of the Memoriad, which also involves a mental calculations competition identical to the world cup, which will nicely make up for me missing that earlier this year, is that everything's going to be done on computer. And they've got a software available for download which is very, very good indeed! Better, I would go so far as to say, than anything anyone has created before. Apart from a couple of little bugs, it works perfectly, and I think this is the future of the memory championships.

Distant future, of course. There's always the question of being able to arrange the necessary computer technology in large enough quantities for all the competitors to use, and I can't see that happening at the world championships for some time. But, barring software errors, this will make arbiting a lot quicker, easier and less prone to mistakes.

I objected to the idea of computerised memory competitions when they were first suggested to me, long ago, and I'm still not really comfortable with the idea of forcing competitors to stare at a screen constantly for an hour, but I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works. And that software is extremely nifty. Go and download it, even if you're not planning on going to Istanbul!

Also, go to Istanbul. There's prize money!