Sudden snow!

It got cold here all of a sudden, and there was a thick coat of snow on the ground this morning. I suppose that means winter's here, though I remain hopeful that it'll be hot and sunny again tomorrow.

It's a wonder I keep my sunny disposition

Car problems and computer problems at work... let's give up on the whole technology thing, it clearly isn't working out.

Except the internet, we can keep that. And the XMT.

Fresh air and exercise

Tiring stuff. Avoid it.

Anyone for tennis?

The coolest thing about the tennis tour finals is the way it's carefully arranged so that there are always extremely complicated permutations of who'll qualify for the semi-finals depending on who wins and loses the last game and by how many sets. It's real nerd-appeal, and there needs to be a memory competition that does something like that, somehow. Make the XMT rules much more complicated and we're onto a winner!

I feel like I should try to analyse whether it's like or unlike the XMT with the way people are always talking about the same players being at the top of the tennis world every year - I'm always intrigued by the way Ferrer and Berdych always, without fail, lurk somewhere between fifth and eighth in the world rankings. Will the usual suspects hang around in the knockout stages of the XMT for years on end, or will things change around?

I say 'should', because I can't really be bothered to draw proper analogies tonight. Maybe another time.

Franklin Mint Collectibles

If you ever wanted an authentic piece of Ben Pridmore Memory Memorabilia, now's your chance!

 

 



Zzzzz

Been working a lot lately, but now I've got the next three days off. Going to spend it sleeping and watching cartoons.

Popularity!

Since I started posting something here every day, my pageviews have increased steadily. This is a good thing, because amassing a huge number of devoted followers who hang on my every word is phase one of my master plan to take over the world.

Phase two involves a lot of sleeping and watching cartoons while my minions do all the world-conquering work.

It's not fair

I had a lottery ticket last night and didn't win anything. The whole thing's obviously a big fix. Possibly I won't get to do that tour of European memory competitions after all...

Merchandising

A while ago, someone asked if he could buy a signed pack of cards from me, and I wondered (via Facebook) if this might actually be a thing people would do. I have (after sending this fan a signed pack for free, since he asked first) got 33 old packs lying around the place that I've since replaced - and for however many months since I first had the idea, I've been meaning to create a stylish poster advertising them for sale. I'll make a real effort to get round to doing it next week, I think.

So, anyone want to buy one of the packs I used to set those Guinness World Records? With my signature on them and everything? Reserve yours today!

International jetsetting

I'm hoping for at least one trip to China and two to the USA next year which I can pay for, hopefully, fingers crossed, by memorising things. I haven't actually been to continental Europe for ages, though, so I keep daydreaming about winning the lottery and devoting a year or so to travelling all around Europe's increasing number of memory competitions just for the fun of it. Not to mentioning organising a couple myself and giving away my lottery winnings in prize money, of course...

Christmas is getting later and later

I haven't really seen anyone complaining yet that Christmas seems to start earlier every year. Come on, people, it's mid November, get moaning about it!

Nearly forgot to blog tonight

How many days in a row have I posted something here now? It must be quite a lot.

Muppet madness!

Okay, I really really love The Muppets! From a starting point of 'hoping it would be good but expecting to be disappointed' I've quickly progressed to 'super huge devoted fan'! I'm very favourably impressed, it's hilarious, clever and perfectly silly! Who would have thought it?

I Say No

And I further say, no, I don't really think much of "I Say No" by Wilkie Collins. It's the book I'm reading at the moment, and I might give it up and just go and re-read one of his good books instead.

I'm talkin' downtown!

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!

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:

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!