The Memoriad website has had a swanky new update and a new announcement attributed to Scott Flansburg (it kind of reads like it was written by someone whose first language is Turkish, but it says it's from Scott, so who am I to argue?) about the dates and location of the 2016 Memoriad (yay!) - November 7-11 2016, at The Western in downtown Las Vegas!
Remember how awesome the Memoriad was in 2012? I'm sure this one will be even bigger and better! I really can't wait, even though it's still a year away and I don't believe in acknowledging that anything could happen so far in the distant future (certainly not memory competitions - I've got accustomed to the dates and locations being finalised a couple of hours before they start...)
There's the disturbing consideration that this will be the first mind-sports event I go to after my fortieth birthday, of course, but I choose to see this as a good thing. As Phill pointed out on Facebook a while ago, I've won big memory competitions while in my twenties and thirties, perhaps I can be the first person ever to do it in my 20s, 30s and 40s? That'd be an achievement!
Saturday, November 07, 2015
Friday, November 06, 2015
Elo elo elo, what's all this then?
There's been some talk among all the top memory people about rating the Extreme Memory Tournament competitors, using something along the lines of the Elo system in chess. Or for that matter in othello, which uses basically the same principles.
Until I looked it up last week, incidentally, I always thought it was the ELO system and the letters stood for something (although probably not Electric Light Orchestra), but it turns out it was named after a man called Elo. Anyway, the basic idea is that your rating goes up by a bit if you win a game and down by a bit if you lose. How big the bit is depends on the difference between your rating and your opponent's.
Now, the othello ratings are calculated by David Haigh, who's the only person in the universe who knows how it works. Well, him and all the people who've read his detailed explanation of how they're calculated and understood it, but I don't fit into that category. I've got a vague idea, but that's about as far as it goes. Not daunted by this, I've crunched some numbers and drawn up a rating list to see what it would look like.
People start out with 1400 points, for no good reason except that that's what the othello ratings start with, and increase/decrease by an amount that is 16 points if the memorisers have identical ratings, tending towards 0 or 32 depending on how big the gap between their ratings is. The change goes on a normal distribution (I don't entirely know what that is, I'm not a mathematician, but I put numbers into Excel's normal distribution formula until it comes out with the same kind of numbers as David quoted in his article). The othello ratings work differently for people who've played few or no matches before, but since everyone is starting from scratch here, and since I don't understand the calculation of provisional othello ratings (no, seriously, I'm not a mathematician, I'm an accountant and financial analyst, it's an entirely different discipline) I haven't done that.
Anyway, this arbitrary ranking makes a list that looks like this:
Obviously with there being so few matches for some people (like James, who won six out of twelve in 2014 but didn't qualify for the knockout stages), it's not super-scientific, but I think it still makes interesting reading. I would've hoped to be higher than 17th, since I basically made up the rules myself here, but that's how it worked out.
Incidentally, if you didn't know, you can see all the matches in the wonderfully-interactive XMT Live sites. Here's 2014 and here's 2015. If you want to see all Simon's matches, for example, type 'Simon' into the bar at the top. If you want to see all of Anne's images matches, type 'Anne images'. And so forth. It's great!
But the thing about the XMT is that there are five different kinds of match - six, if you count the surprise task. Some people are good at some disciplines but bad at others. Really, if you want to analyse who's good at the XMT, you might want a ranking system for each discipline. So even though there are so few matches as to make the whole thing pretty meaningless, that's basically what I've done here...
Cards!
That's more like it! Second place in the card ranking! I have tended to win all my matches there, which is why it's always my first choice in the knockout events. Possibly even against Simon, though I'll have to think about my strategy there. The interesting thing is that Mark Anthony comes in third - I never really thought of him as being a cards specialist, but looking back at his results, he's very consistently good at it. And also improved quite a lot between 2014 and 2015, too. Be worried next year!
Images!
Did you know Hannes won eight out of eight images matches in 2015? See, the cool thing about these ratings is that they show that kind of trivia. Enkhjin was unquestionably the fastest when it came to images this year, but the XMT is about beating your opponent and making sure you get it right every time.
Names!
Oh, come on! I'm not THAT bad at names, am I? Really? Sheesh. Let's move on.
Numbers!
Hmm, here's a weak spot for the unstoppable Simon, it seems... although kind of a weak spot for me too, so taking advantage of it might be a problem. Numbers is the easiest discipline to make a mistake in and fail to get the perfect 80, so it probably favours people who are just the right amount of careful...
Words!
Now, if I could find a way to get 47 every time in words, I could fight my way back up the rankings, maybe...
And finally, those Extreme Memory Tasks...
Not really enough data here to go on, especially since the surprise tasks are different every time...
And so that's that. Comments, queries and suggestions are very welcome!
Until I looked it up last week, incidentally, I always thought it was the ELO system and the letters stood for something (although probably not Electric Light Orchestra), but it turns out it was named after a man called Elo. Anyway, the basic idea is that your rating goes up by a bit if you win a game and down by a bit if you lose. How big the bit is depends on the difference between your rating and your opponent's.
Now, the othello ratings are calculated by David Haigh, who's the only person in the universe who knows how it works. Well, him and all the people who've read his detailed explanation of how they're calculated and understood it, but I don't fit into that category. I've got a vague idea, but that's about as far as it goes. Not daunted by this, I've crunched some numbers and drawn up a rating list to see what it would look like.
People start out with 1400 points, for no good reason except that that's what the othello ratings start with, and increase/decrease by an amount that is 16 points if the memorisers have identical ratings, tending towards 0 or 32 depending on how big the gap between their ratings is. The change goes on a normal distribution (I don't entirely know what that is, I'm not a mathematician, but I put numbers into Excel's normal distribution formula until it comes out with the same kind of numbers as David quoted in his article). The othello ratings work differently for people who've played few or no matches before, but since everyone is starting from scratch here, and since I don't understand the calculation of provisional othello ratings (no, seriously, I'm not a mathematician, I'm an accountant and financial analyst, it's an entirely different discipline) I haven't done that.
Anyway, this arbitrary ranking makes a list that looks like this:
| ALL | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Simon Reinhard | 61 | 1616 |
| 2 | Johannes Mallow | 73 | 1601 |
| 3 | Boris Konrad | 55 | 1537 |
| 4 | Jonas von Essen | 54 | 1509 |
| 5 | Christian Schäfer | 44 | 1503 |
| 6 | Alex Mullen | 36 | 1497 |
| 7 | Katie Kermode | 25 | 1476 |
| 8 | Enhkjin Tumur | 25 | 1470 |
| 9 | Johannes Zhou | 21 | 1409 |
| 10 | Marlo Knight | 15 | 1407 |
| 11 | James Paterson | 12 | 1399 |
| 12 | Gunther Karsten | 12 | 1395 |
| 13 | Andi Bell | 12 | 1385 |
| 14 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 45 | 1381 |
| 15 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 19 | 1375 |
| 16 | Marwin Wallonius | 32 | 1374 |
| 17 | Ben Pridmore | 38 | 1371 |
| 18 | Erwin Balines | 12 | 1369 |
| 19 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 20 | 1366 |
| 20 | Lance Tschirhart | 15 | 1357 |
| 21 | Ola Kåre Risa | 37 | 1354 |
| 22 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 15 | 1337 |
| 23 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 15 | 1320 |
| 24 | Annalena Fischer | 31 | 1314 |
| 25 | Anne Reulke | 15 | 1313 |
| 26 | Norbert Reulke | 15 | 1306 |
| 27 | Bat-Erdene Tsogoo | 12 | 1293 |
| 28 | Johann Randall Abrina | 27 | 1287 |
| 29 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 15 | 1279 |
Obviously with there being so few matches for some people (like James, who won six out of twelve in 2014 but didn't qualify for the knockout stages), it's not super-scientific, but I think it still makes interesting reading. I would've hoped to be higher than 17th, since I basically made up the rules myself here, but that's how it worked out.
Incidentally, if you didn't know, you can see all the matches in the wonderfully-interactive XMT Live sites. Here's 2014 and here's 2015. If you want to see all Simon's matches, for example, type 'Simon' into the bar at the top. If you want to see all of Anne's images matches, type 'Anne images'. And so forth. It's great!
But the thing about the XMT is that there are five different kinds of match - six, if you count the surprise task. Some people are good at some disciplines but bad at others. Really, if you want to analyse who's good at the XMT, you might want a ranking system for each discipline. So even though there are so few matches as to make the whole thing pretty meaningless, that's basically what I've done here...
Cards!
| CARDS | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Simon Reinhard | 10 | 1505 |
| 2 | Ben Pridmore | 8 | 1488 |
| 3 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 10 | 1478 |
| 4 | Johannes Mallow | 15 | 1473 |
| 5 | Alex Mullen | 8 | 1465 |
| 6 | Christian Schäfer | 7 | 1418 |
| 7 | Lance Tschirhart | 3 | 1417 |
| 8 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 3 | 1416 |
| 9 | Gunther Karsten | 3 | 1416 |
| 10 | Jonas von Essen | 11 | 1409 |
| 11 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 4 | 1402 |
| 12 | Enhkjin Tumur | 4 | 1401 |
| 13 | Ola Kåre Risa | 9 | 1388 |
| 14 | Marlo Knight | 3 | 1388 |
| 15 | Anne Reulke | 3 | 1387 |
| 16 | Andi Bell | 3 | 1387 |
| 17 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 3 | 1385 |
| 18 | Bat-Erdene Tsogoo | 3 | 1384 |
| 19 | Erwin Balines | 3 | 1384 |
| 20 | Norbert Reulke | 3 | 1382 |
| 21 | Boris Konrad | 10 | 1380 |
| 22 | Johannes Zhou | 4 | 1371 |
| 23 | Marwin Wallonius | 6 | 1368 |
| 24 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 3 | 1356 |
| 25 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 3 | 1356 |
| 26 | James Paterson | 3 | 1355 |
| 27 | Annalena Fischer | 7 | 1352 |
| 28 | Katie Kermode | 4 | 1345 |
| 29 | Johann Randall Abrina | 6 | 1344 |
That's more like it! Second place in the card ranking! I have tended to win all my matches there, which is why it's always my first choice in the knockout events. Possibly even against Simon, though I'll have to think about my strategy there. The interesting thing is that Mark Anthony comes in third - I never really thought of him as being a cards specialist, but looking back at his results, he's very consistently good at it. And also improved quite a lot between 2014 and 2015, too. Be worried next year!
Images!
| IMAGES | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Johannes Mallow | 8 | 1517 |
| 2 | Christian Schäfer | 5 | 1443 |
| 3 | Boris Konrad | 6 | 1435 |
| 4 | Katie Kermode | 6 | 1431 |
| 5 | Simon Reinhard | 5 | 1415 |
| 6 | Enhkjin Tumur | 5 | 1415 |
| 7 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 3 | 1415 |
| 8 | Alex Mullen | 6 | 1407 |
| 9 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 4 | 1403 |
| 10 | Marwin Wallonius | 4 | 1401 |
| 11 | Ben Pridmore | 4 | 1400 |
| 12 | Johannes Zhou | 4 | 1399 |
| 13 | Annalena Fischer | 4 | 1397 |
| 14 | Jonas von Essen | 4 | 1397 |
| 15 | Marlo Knight | 3 | 1387 |
| 16 | Norbert Reulke | 3 | 1385 |
| 17 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 3 | 1385 |
| 18 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 3 | 1384 |
| 19 | Lance Tschirhart | 3 | 1384 |
| 20 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 3 | 1384 |
| 21 | Ola Kåre Risa | 3 | 1355 |
| 22 | Anne Reulke | 3 | 1353 |
| 23 | Johann Randall Abrina | 3 | 1353 |
| 24 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 3 | 1353 |
Did you know Hannes won eight out of eight images matches in 2015? See, the cool thing about these ratings is that they show that kind of trivia. Enkhjin was unquestionably the fastest when it came to images this year, but the XMT is about beating your opponent and making sure you get it right every time.
Names!
| NAMES | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Simon Reinhard | 14 | 1542 |
| 2 | Jonas von Essen | 14 | 1512 |
| 3 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 3 | 1446 |
| 4 | Christian Schäfer | 9 | 1443 |
| 5 | Ola Kåre Risa | 9 | 1428 |
| 6 | Marlo Knight | 3 | 1419 |
| 7 | Enhkjin Tumur | 5 | 1417 |
| 8 | Andi Bell | 3 | 1416 |
| 9 | Erwin Balines | 3 | 1416 |
| 10 | James Paterson | 3 | 1415 |
| 11 | Johannes Zhou | 5 | 1411 |
| 12 | Anne Reulke | 3 | 1404 |
| 13 | Alex Mullen | 5 | 1404 |
| 14 | Katie Kermode | 4 | 1403 |
| 15 | Johann Randall Abrina | 6 | 1401 |
| 16 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 3 | 1398 |
| 17 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 4 | 1389 |
| 18 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 3 | 1384 |
| 19 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 3 | 1383 |
| 20 | Marwin Wallonius | 7 | 1377 |
| 21 | Johannes Mallow | 15 | 1373 |
| 22 | Annalena Fischer | 6 | 1373 |
| 23 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 11 | 1365 |
| 24 | Lance Tschirhart | 3 | 1358 |
| 25 | Boris Konrad | 12 | 1357 |
| 26 | Bat-Erdene Tsogoo | 3 | 1353 |
| 27 | Gunther Karsten | 3 | 1353 |
| 28 | Norbert Reulke | 3 | 1352 |
| 29 | Ben Pridmore | 9 | 1307 |
Oh, come on! I'm not THAT bad at names, am I? Really? Sheesh. Let's move on.
Numbers!
| NUMBERS | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Christian Schäfer | 10 | 1449 |
| 2 | Johannes Mallow | 12 | 1447 |
| 3 | Enhkjin Tumur | 5 | 1447 |
| 4 | Katie Kermode | 4 | 1433 |
| 5 | Alex Mullen | 6 | 1430 |
| 6 | Andi Bell | 3 | 1416 |
| 7 | Gunther Karsten | 3 | 1416 |
| 8 | James Paterson | 3 | 1415 |
| 9 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 3 | 1411 |
| 10 | Ola Kåre Risa | 7 | 1409 |
| 11 | Jonas von Essen | 9 | 1409 |
| 12 | Boris Konrad | 12 | 1408 |
| 13 | Johannes Zhou | 4 | 1406 |
| 14 | Johann Randall Abrina | 6 | 1401 |
| 15 | Annalena Fischer | 6 | 1401 |
| 16 | Ben Pridmore | 8 | 1398 |
| 17 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 4 | 1397 |
| 18 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 4 | 1397 |
| 19 | Marlo Knight | 3 | 1387 |
| 20 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 3 | 1387 |
| 21 | Norbert Reulke | 3 | 1385 |
| 22 | Lance Tschirhart | 3 | 1385 |
| 23 | Simon Reinhard | 13 | 1384 |
| 24 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 3 | 1384 |
| 25 | Erwin Balines | 3 | 1384 |
| 26 | Bat-Erdene Tsogoo | 3 | 1383 |
| 27 | Marwin Wallonius | 7 | 1368 |
| 28 | Anne Reulke | 3 | 1353 |
| 29 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 9 | 1310 |
Hmm, here's a weak spot for the unstoppable Simon, it seems... although kind of a weak spot for me too, so taking advantage of it might be a problem. Numbers is the easiest discipline to make a mistake in and fail to get the perfect 80, so it probably favours people who are just the right amount of careful...
Words!
| WORDS | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Simon Reinhard | 11 | 1545 |
| 2 | Johannes Mallow | 14 | 1534 |
| 3 | Jonas von Essen | 11 | 1520 |
| 4 | Boris Konrad | 9 | 1477 |
| 5 | Christian Schäfer | 10 | 1452 |
| 6 | Katie Kermode | 5 | 1420 |
| 7 | Johannes Zhou | 3 | 1416 |
| 8 | James Paterson | 3 | 1416 |
| 9 | Gunther Karsten | 3 | 1400 |
| 10 | Alex Mullen | 7 | 1394 |
| 11 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 8 | 1391 |
| 12 | Lance Tschirhart | 3 | 1390 |
| 13 | Ola Kåre Risa | 7 | 1387 |
| 14 | Marlo Knight | 3 | 1387 |
| 15 | Annalena Fischer | 7 | 1385 |
| 16 | Erwin Balines | 3 | 1384 |
| 17 | Norbert Reulke | 3 | 1382 |
| 18 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 3 | 1381 |
| 19 | Enhkjin Tumur | 4 | 1377 |
| 20 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 4 | 1374 |
| 21 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 4 | 1370 |
| 22 | Marwin Wallonius | 7 | 1366 |
| 23 | Ben Pridmore | 7 | 1360 |
| 24 | Anne Reulke | 3 | 1358 |
| 25 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 3 | 1356 |
| 26 | Andi Bell | 3 | 1355 |
| 27 | Bat-Erdene Tsogoo | 3 | 1355 |
| 28 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 3 | 1353 |
| 29 | Johann Randall Abrina | 6 | 1315 |
Now, if I could find a way to get 47 every time in words, I could fight my way back up the rankings, maybe...
And finally, those Extreme Memory Tasks...
| SURPRISE | Name | Matches | Rating |
| 1 | Simon Reinhard | 8 | 1480 |
| 2 | Boris Konrad | 6 | 1458 |
| 3 | Alex Mullen | 4 | 1430 |
| 4 | Katie Kermode | 2 | 1430 |
| 5 | Marwin Wallonius | 1 | 1417 |
| 6 | Jonas von Essen | 5 | 1414 |
| 7 | Enhkjin Tumur | 2 | 1403 |
| 8 | Ben Pridmore | 2 | 1399 |
| 9 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 1 | 1384 |
| 10 | Annalena Fischer | 1 | 1384 |
| 11 | Christian Schäfer | 3 | 1383 |
| 12 | Yanjaa Altansuh | 1 | 1383 |
| 13 | Johannes Zhou | 1 | 1382 |
| 14 | Mark Anthony Castaneda | 4 | 1371 |
| 15 | Ola Kåre Risa | 2 | 1369 |
| 16 | Johannes Mallow | 9 | 1312 |
Not really enough data here to go on, especially since the surprise tasks are different every time...
And so that's that. Comments, queries and suggestions are very welcome!