WMC 2012 Preview: A Different Take

Tomorrow is the start of the 2012 World Memory Championship. In anticipation of the said event, I’ve posted a preview and gave a prediction on who might turn out on top for this weekend. But my methods were a bit shoddy since it was only based on the athlete’s past performances and not their current feeling or perception on how they trained or might perform. As Tobiasz Boral of Poland points out, that "anything is possible!" Luckily, an astute observation was made by Dai Griffiths, a fellow mnemonist from Wales, pointed out to me a stat on the competitor’s list that may actually give a hint on how a participant may currently gauge their training, preparation, and performance. As Dai said (not his actual words), the number of cards brought or requested from the WMC, as seen from the competitor’s list, will give an accurate forecast on how each contestant expect to perform this weekend. Assuming that the same preparation went on with the other events, it will take into account their confidence going into tomorrow’s memory tilt, which we can then use to predict how the tournament will play out. So, what I did was get the average of three highest card requests from each country and rank them from the most to the least. Those with less than 3 members will still be divided by three, as per tournament proceedings. 

The Results: Team Standings Projections

Having done that, here’s how it looks:

Projected Rank	Country	Card Ave
1	Germany	28.3
2	UK	19.7
3	China	19.3
4	Philippines	16.3
5	Sweden	16
6	US	15
7	India	14
8	Hong Kong	12.3
9	Netherlands	10.7
10	Denmark	10
11	Indonesia	8.3
t12	Norway	8
t12	Poland	8
14	Italy	7
15	France	6.7
16	Australia	5.7
17	Finland	5
t18	Ireland	2.7
t18	Pakistan	2.7
t20	Singapore	1.7
t20	Malaysia	1.7

There you have it, it is pretty much the same as yesterday's prediction where Germany would end up as World Champions except for the major jump by Sweden from a projected SECOND, to a FIFTH place finish behind the Philippines. A definite order was also established between the US of A and the Philippines, where the US is seen to land at sixth, behind Sweden. This method also allowed us to rank the rest of the teams, unlike before wherein we were hindered by the lack of information on other competitors. 

See the Individual Standings Projections after the Jump..

The Results: Individual Standings Projections (Top 10)

Following the same formula as before, the Top 10 individual rankings would be the following:

Projected Rank	Competitor	No of Cards
1	Ben Pridmore	36
2	Simon Reinhard	35
t3	Johannes Mallow	30
t3	Nelson Dellis	30
5	Yudi Lesmana	25
6	Ola Kare Risa	24
7	Jonas Von Essen	21
t8	Mark Antony Castañeda	20
t8	Rick De Jong	20
t8	Boris Konrad	20
t8	Christian Schaefer	20
t8	Pan Jiang Hao	20
t8	Wen Guoquan	20

According to this results, there are now four possible athletes vying for the top spot, breaking the possible sweep by the Germans, and that UK's Ben Pridmore will likely be the World Champion again! But according to the man himself, such possibility is unlikely. And I'm inclined to believe him. When narrowed down to individual rankings, this method becomes tenuous because we are only looking at a single event for a single person. It would be quite difficult to apply the law of averages here. Other factors will come into play, such as performance/training in other events, in determining this year's World Champion of Memory 

Conclusion

As I said yesterday, this exercise does not take into account other variables that may affect an athlete's performance, i.e. Intensity, Duration, and Scope of their Training/Preparation. Even though this method of projecting winners may be a more accurate measure in determining team standings, it can also be a bit misleading when used for individual rankings. There is also very little difference between yesterday's predictions and today's experiment. Only one country went down in rankings and the Germans still dominates the top. 

So, what say you my fellow memory enthusiasts? Will this be a better and more accurate forecast for tomorrows events? Share your thoughts at the comment section! Cheers!