World Memory Championships
The World Memory Championships is an organized competition of memory sports in which competitors memorize as much information as possible within a given period of time.[1] The championship has taken place annually since 1991, with the exception of 1992.[2] It was originated by Tony Buzan and co founded by Tony Buzan and Ray Keene. It continues to be organized by the World Memory Sports Council (WMSC), which was jointly founded by Tony Buzan and Ray Keene. In 2016, due to a dispute between some players and the WMSC, the International Association of Memory (IAM) was launched.[3] From 2017 onward, both organizations have hosted their own world championships.
The current WMSC world champion is Enkhjargal Uuriintsolmon of Mongolia.[4] The current IAM world champion is Enrico Marraffa of Italy.[5]
Format
The World Championships consist of ten different disciplines, where the competitors have to memorize as much as they can in a period of time:
- One-hour numbers (23712892....)
- 5-minute numbers
- Spoken numbers, read out one per second
- 30-minute binary digits (011100110001001....)
- One-hour playing cards (as many decks of cards as possible)
- 15-minute random lists of words (house, playing, orphan, encyclopedia....)
- 15-minute names and faces
- 5-minute historic dates (fictional events and historic years)
- 15-minute abstract images (WMSC, black and white randomly generated spots) / 5-minute random images (IAM, concrete images)
- Speed cards - Always the last discipline. Memorize the order of one shuffled deck of 52 playing cards as fast as possible.
Venues and winners
World Champions (1991-2016)
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- Template:Asterisk – The 2016 World Championships was hosted by the WMSC and was the first world championship not recognized by the IAM, who did not host their own world championship that year.[6]
- § – Athletes generally competed in their respective countries given COVID-19 restrictions, with results combined to determine the world champion.
Records
Up-to-date lists of world and national records can be found on the statistics websites of the IAM[7] and WMSC.[8] The best of them are listed in the following table.
| Discipline | Record | Athlete | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hour numbers | 4620 digits | Template:Flagicon Ryu Song I | WMSC World Championship 2019 |
| 5-minute numbers | 642 digits | Template:Flagicon Wei Qinru | Korea Open Memory Championship 2024 |
| Spoken numbers | 660 digits | Template:Flagicon Hu Xueyan | WMSC World Championship 2024 |
| 30-minute binary digits | 7485 digits | Template:Flagicon Ryu Song I | WMSC World Championship 2019 |
| Hour cards | 2530 cards | Template:Flagicon Kim Su Rim | WMSC World Championship 2019 |
| Speed cards | 12.74 seconds | Template:Flagicon Shijir-Erdene Bat-Enkh | IAM Korea Open 2018 |
| 15-minute random words | 335 words | Template:Flagicon Prateek Yadav | WMSC World Championship 2019 |
| 15-minute names and faces | 224 names | Template:Flagicon Katie Kermode | IAM World Championship 2018 |
| 5-minute historic dates | 154 dates | Template:Flagicon Prateek Yadav | WMSC World Championship 2019 |
| 15-minute abstract images (WMSC) | 1048 points | Template:Flagicon Huang Jinyao | China Memory Championships 2022 |
| 5-minute random images (IAM) | 711 points | Template:Flagicon Enrico Marraffa | IAM World Championship 2024 |
Championships by country
| Country | Titles<templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>[1] |
|---|---|
| File:Flag of England.svg England | 15 |
| File:Flag of Germany.svg Germany | 5 |
| File:Flag of Mongolia.svg Mongolia | 5 |
| File:Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg China | 4 |
| File:Flag of the United States.svg USA | 3 |
| File:Flag of Italy.svg Italy | 2 |
| File:Flag of Sweden.svg Sweden | 2 |
| File:Flag of North Korea.svg North Korea | 1 |
| File:Flag of Pakistan.svg Pakistan | 1 |
See also
- World championship
- Eidetic memory
- Grand Master of Memory
- List of world championships in mind sports
- Memory sport
- Method of loci
- Mnemonist
- Mnemonic major system
- Extreme Memory Tournament
- World Junior Memory Championships
- World Mind Sports Games
- Mind Sports Olympiad
- Memory sport
- Mind sport
- Mind Sports Organisation
- International Association of Memory
- Mental Calculation World Cup
- Mental calculation
- Mental abacus
- WorldSkills
- Memoride
- Asian Memory Championship - The first Asia Memory Open in 2020 / 2010[9][10][11]
- Robo Cup
- Patent
- World competition of inventions
References
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External links
- World Memory Championships website
- WMSC Statistics website
- IAM website
- IAM Statistics website
- Memoriad - World Memory Olympics website
- List of Memory Competitions
- RNG v1.0 Random Number Generator for training Working Memory
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