World Memory Championships Explained

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 Huang Jinyao of China.[4] The current IAM world champion is Tenuun Tamir of Mongolia.[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:

  1. One hour numbers (23712892....)
  2. 5-minute numbers
  3. Spoken numbers, read out one per second
  4. 30-minute binary digits (011100110001001....)
  5. One hour playing cards (as many decks of cards as possible)
  6. 15-minute random lists of words (house, playing, orphan, encyclopedia....)
  7. 15-minute names and faces
  8. 5-minute historic dates (fictional events and historic years)
  9. 15-minute abstract images (WMSC, black and white randomly generated spots) / 5-minute random images (IAM, concrete images)
  10. 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)

Year Venue Winner
1 1991 London Dominic O'Brien
2 1993 London Dominic O'Brien
3 1994 London Jonathan Hancock
4 1995 London
5 1996 London Dominic O'Brien
6 1997 London
7 1998 London Andi Bell
8 1999 London
9 2000 London Dominic O'Brien
10 2001 London
11 2002 London Andi Bell
12 2003 Andi Bell
13 2004 Ben Pridmore
14 2005 Clemens Mayer
15 2006 London Clemens Mayer
16 2007 Gunther Karsten
17 2008 Bahrain Ben Pridmore
18 2009 London Ben Pridmore
19 2010 Wang Feng
20 2011 Guangzhou Wang Feng
21 2012 London Johannes Mallow
22 2013 London Jonas von Essen
23 2014 Jonas von Essen
24 2015 Alex Mullen
25 2016 Alex Mullen

IAM world champions

(2017–present)

International Association of Memory

Year Venue Winner Combined Rankings
1 2017 Champion
2 2018 Non-Champion
3 2019 Non-Champion
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
4 2023 Non-Champion

WMSC world champions

(2017–present)

WMSC (World Memory Sports Council)

Year Venue Winner Combined Rankings
262017Shenzhen Munkhshur NarmandakhNon-Champion
272018Hong Kong Wei QinruChampion
282019Wuhan Ryu Song IChampion
292020Karachi§ Emma Alam-
302021Ulaanbaatar§ Munkhshur Narmandakh-
312022Ulaanbaatar§ Tenuun Tamir-
322023Sanya Huang JinyaoChampion

33th 2024

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 WMSC World Championship 2019
5-minute numbers 642 digits Korea Open Memory Championship 2024
Spoken numbers 547 digits WMSC World Championship 2019
30-minute binary digits 7485 digits WMSC World Championship 2019
Hour cards 2530 cards WMSC World Championship 2019
Speed cards 12.74 seconds IAM Korea Open 2018
15-minute random words 335 words Prateek YadavWMSC World Championship 2019
15-minute names and faces 224 names Katie KermodeIAM World Championship 2018
5-minute historic dates 154 dates WMSC World Championship 2019
15-minute abstract images (WMSC) 1048 points China Memory Championships 2022
5-minute random images (IAM) 618 points IAM World Memory Championship 2023

See also

External links

See main article: world championships.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The World Memory Championships - Memory Training - Accelerated Learning . 2007-01-26 . 2012-06-17 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120617205840/http://www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/mem/0998wrld.htm . live .
  2. Web site: World Memory Championships World Memory Statistics. www.world-memory-statistics.com. 2016-12-21. 2023-05-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20230519175845/http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/c_world.php. live.
  3. Web site: International Association of Memory Memory Sports. memory-sports.com. 2017-12-06. 2017-12-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20171206010005/http://memory-sports.com/blog/memory-championships/the-international-association-of-memory/. live.
  4. Web site: 2023 32nd World Memory Championship Global Finals Results Table. 2024-04-02. 2024-04-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20240402041837/https://www.worldmemorychampionships.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WMC32-Ranking-and-Results-Dec-13.pdf. live .
  5. Web site: IAM Statistics . 2024-04-02 . iam-stats.org . 2024-04-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240412223530/https://iam-stats.org/competition.php?id=WMC2023 . live .
  6. Web site: World Memory Championships International Association of Memory Statistics. www.iam-stats.org. 2017-12-10.
  7. Web site: World Records International Association of Memory statistics. iam-stats.org. 2018-12-19. 2019-10-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20191024073446/http://iam-stats.org/records.php. live.
  8. Web site: World Records World Memory Statistics. www.world-memory-statistics.co.uk. 2018-12-19. 2018-12-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20181220232031/http://www.world-memory-statistics.co.uk/disciplines.php. live.
  9. Web site: Final Results of the 4th Asia Pacific Open Memory Championships – Asia Pacific Memory Sports Council & The World Memory Championships . 2024-05-10 . zh-CN.
  10. Web site: Final Results of the 2024 World Memory Championships Vietnam Tournament on Jan.27th-28th – Asia Pacific Memory Sports Council & The World Memory Championships.
  11. Web site: Asia Memory Sports Alliance . 2024-05-10 . www.asia-memory.org.