Mind sports updates

 I did indeed get knocked out in the first round of the Microsoft Excel World Championship at the weekend, but as I told you, I was drawn against the sixth seed, and now that the dust has settled after yesterday's third and fourth rounds, he's one of the eight Excel masters who are going to Las Vegas for the grand final in December!

And I still think it's a great achievement to get to the round of 128 two years in a row, but I'll need to buckle down and get good at this if I'm going to become official world champion in the years to come - preferably before more talented Excellers find out that the competition exists! So that's my resolution for the next year or so, anyway.

Meanwhile, if you remember that thing I used to be world champion at before the more talented memorisers found out that it exists (but still want to read a really rather good article about how the whole memory principle works and be inspired by it to start taking part yourself), check out this interview with Katie Kermode!

I like the repeated namechecks of the Ben System - that's something that hasn't gone away, even though Katie (like all really good memory masters) has given it her own individual twist and would be fully justified in calling it the Katie System instead. Modern-day memorisers are less inclined to name things after themselves these days.

And moving on to the mind sport I've never been anywhere near the world's best at, but still very much enjoy anyway, the World Othello Championship is happening in Rome right now!

After seven of thirteen rounds, it's still all to play for! See, one of these days I might still be world champion at othello too - I'm just waiting for all the really great othellists to forget that the competition exists.