AOO!

 Yes, it's the Asian-Oceanian Open on Memory League! For those who aren't keeping in touch with the world of Memory League, we have three big tournaments a year, each scheduled in a different time zone eight hours apart, so everyone around the world can join in from home and gets at least one in an optimal time of day, as well as one in the middle of the night.

For some reason, I only ever seem to qualify for the one in the middle of the night, British time. It's not a shortage of people choosing to take part in this one, it's just worked out that way. But for the second year in a row I had the honour of being up at 1:00 on Saturday morning to commence my match against top seed Vishvaa Rajakumar (in India, and only having to be up at half past five, because the "Asian" part of the tournament title is more thinking of east Asia and we got the earliest match).

And a great match it was, too! Vishvaa is a lot better than me, generally, and I didn't really have any hope of winning this match, but I did know that if I was at my best I could force him to be at his best to win it, and that's almost the way it turned out!

He chose international names for the first discipline, naturally - I'm famously bad at that and guaranteed to lose - but then I chose cards and managed to stop the clock a brilliant 0.09 seconds faster than he did!

Now THAT set down a marker in style! He has to go (very slightly) faster than his comfortable time if he wants to beat me! Not really an issue in his next choice, images, though - 'safe' for Vishvaa there is 'personal best' kind of time for me...

And then we're on to numbers, my other one of the five disciplines where I feel like I have any chance to do better than him. And again I set a faster time, and ooh, this was annoying!

See, I'd left that sixth three-digit block blank when filling in the recall, then went back and put in '081' (a building site). But I somehow didn't trust my memory there. I was imagining a sort of empty space, but was I extrapolating from the previous two images of a sit-down protest and a boot? Both of them come with vibes of desolation and emptiness, just like the 'site' does. Might it not have been some kind of building the boot was next to? Like 921, a betting shop? That carries a similar emotional context. I changed the 081 to 921 at the last minute, and I should have left it alone!

Maybe when I'm memorising in the middle of the night I'm more prone to thinking about the emotional context of my images than what they look like. Or maybe being sleepy just drives me slightly mad. Because I'd forgotten my golden rule - 'trust your memory!' It's never a good idea to discard your first slightly-uncertain idea to replace it with a second uncertain one! Like I mentioned in the comments there, that's advice I give to people! All the time!

Ah well. Vishvaa chose words next to wrap up the first set - he can safely do a score in the high 40s there, and I can only do that in a once-in-a-blue-moon miracle. Besides, this time I was still thinking about that numbers game and didn't come anywhere close getting it right.

And in the second set, by now way past my bedtime, I made mistakes in both cards and numbers, but was at least gratified to see Vishvaa had gone for super-safe full-one-minute memorisation times rather than trying to beat me. Sensible play when you're up against a capable opponent in two disciplines with a long tournament in front of you, and I'm pleased I achieved 'my opponent thinks I'm capable' even if I didn't come close to a victory!

After that I went to bed, leaving Vishvaa to get through the next round, six o'clock in the morning British time, against Naoki Miwa, which he did with some style. The second half of the draw is kicking off their second rounds as I write this, and you can tune in to Memorysports TV to watch it!

Or, if you're a night owl or living in foreign parts, the semi-finals start at 2:00am British time tomorrow! I might join Hannes in the commentary booth on Memorysports TV if I can disrupt my sleep patterns enough to cope with it.