Philippine Memory Championships 2013 Results

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Philippine Memory Championship Results

2013 Philippine Memory Champion Medal Haul

As much as I'd like to post the results from last weekend's events, I was not able to get a copy of the official results as it was not posted during the competition much like the previous one. But the good thing was, later in the day, it was announced over the PA system who the winners were and their corresponding scores. However, I only happen to have the attention to listen for my scores since taking a nap was main priority then (I only managed to sleep for just a couple of hours), thankfully it was announced alphabetically and I was mentioned early, so I doze off right after hearing mine. Unfortunately, that kept me from taking note of anyone else’s scores, plus there were over a hundred participants to keep tab as well.

But, here's what I do know. When monster memorizers like GMs Erwin Balines and Mark Castañeda are away, I get to take home all the golds for the day. Not exactly all of it since, only I won most of the events, except for the random words and spoken numbers event, I got bronze and silver for those. I also get to call myself the First Philippine Memory Champion as well! That has a nice ring to it, might I add. But if anyone asks if I'm truly the first Philippine Memory Champion since, you know GM Erwin just tore through the competition last May where I just came in third, I'd refer you to this bit on the rules about Titles. It says that “The overall winner of the Championships will be entitled to call themselves THE MEMORY CHAMPION (of the current competition year) regardless of the age category in which they have competed.” So, GM Erwin Balines was definitely the first to win a Philippine National Memory Championship, which makes him the First Philippine Memory Champion but technically, according to that bit about title nomenclature, I get to call myself the First Philippine Memory Champion too! But GM Erwin is surely more fitting to be called the First Philippine Friendly Memory Sports Champion, because he obviously looks friendlier than me.

Anyway, here's more info about the tournament that I can safely dish out to you, Ms. Sharmaine D. Dianquinay turned out to be THE runner-up of the championship after some bit of confusion during the awarding ceremonies. They announced her as the fifth place finisher despite having several silver medal finishes and won the gold at spoken numbers. Apparently, with all the hubbub of trying to keep the awarding ceremony at pace to keep the respected guest from bailing out before the overall standings were awarded, some mix up with the scores were made that resulted to the said confusion.

Among the juniors and kids division, the Landicho brothers kicked ass as they both placed at the top of their respective divisions. Miguel Iseah, fresh from winning this year’s Thailand Junior Open Memory Championship just a couple of weeks ago, topped the junior division while his younger brother, Rommel, took the kids division crown. Much like the competitors from the National Open on Memory Sports last May, these kids had just months of training heading into the Philippine Memory Championships as well.

Philippine National Memory Records Broken?

A new record: an intermission number by the Kalokalikes
at a memory championship event.

I think there were quite a number of National Memory Records broken last Saturday and Sunday. But we need to see the final official results posted first before we can make sure of it because I’m just going by what I remember hearing from the announcements and that is not quite reliable. Having last May’s championship ending with superb results muddies up the record as well. So, I’m now confused which national records to consider. For one, the NOMS had no official arbiter, deeming it ineligible for the official rankings. But on the other hand, those results did happen and I was even there to witness it.     

Having said all that, here are the possible records being broken.

Kevin Tenoso and some other person, made a rousing start last Saturday when they score over 400 championship points in the 5 Minute Random Words event where they also got Gold and Silver. And if you are not familiar with how many words you need to memorize to get that score, it’s 50+ words. And the current official record is held by Ms. Sharmaine Dianquinay with 50 words memorized in 5 minutes (The unofficial record is held by GM Erwin with 60 words.)

In the 5 Minute Binary Digits, I was able to break the official national record held by Eon Lee of 345 binary digits by tying GM Erwin’s unofficial binary record of 510 digits.

With Names and Faces, it gets a bit tricky. I was able to beat the official record of 36 points by Ms. AB Bonita with 39 points but that wasn’t enough to beat her unofficial record of 42 points.

The current official record in the 10 Minute Cards is just several days old. It was set by the Beauty Queen, Ms AbbygaleMonderin at the Thailand Open Memory Championship this month with 156 cards (2+ decks). The unofficial record, on the other hand, was set by GM Erwin last May with exactly 208 cards or 4 decks. I managed to beat both records as I cheekily memorized a little bit more than 4 decks of cards just to get past the record, a mere 12 cards more to be exact.

New Speed Cards National Record: 36.25 seconds

And finally, I was able to clear my nerves when it came to speed cards. I’ve been trying to hit below one minute ever since I started competing but I managed to let my nerves get in the way. I thought I was going to break into the one minute barrier last May but I stopped the time at exactly 60 seconds. My heart was racing at that time, especially when I failed to put the cards in order for my ‘safe’ first attempt. But I don’t know why I was unexpectedly calm during the whole two days for this event, maybe it was the lack of sleep or the thought of not having the top two memory guys to compete with, but I felt good on those two days. On my first attempt, I went through the cards deliberately and stopped the time at a little over 50 seconds. That was good enough to tie or beat GM Mark’s official record of 50.86 seconds by just hundredths of a second. I happen to recall the deck perfectly that made it official. Now, I had to weigh in if I’d go balls to the wall and break THE actual World Record of 21.19 seconds of or just go little bit faster than my previous attempt. I didn’t let my hubris get in the way this time, as I opted to go with my second option. And it ended up perfectly again as I managed to hit 36.25 seconds, enough to blast through my personal record barrier and the official record. With that result, I also get to land exactly at the top 10 of the fastest speed cards time in the world and possibly break into the 5000 championship point barrier as well.          

That’s all the info that I have for now. I’ll post more about the changes in the Philippine Memory records when the official stat comes out. Meanwhile, here is some bit of trivia that I found out while doing this, did you know that Jamyla Lambunao has the unofficial world record at Spoken Numbers with 70 digits? Yep, that’s right, the official world record stand at 60 digits set by the young German Konstantin Skudler at the 2011 World Memory Championship.

UPDATES: Official results are in!

Random Words: Kevin Tenoso tied GM Erwin's the unofficial record of 60 words last May. The "some other person" who had 400+ points was Miguel Iseah Landicho with 53 words.

Overall Champion: Abrina, Johann Randall
2nd Place: Dianquinay, Sharmaine
3rd Place: Miguel Iseah Landicho

Division Champions

Adult 1. Abrina, Johann Randall
         2. Dianquinay, Mary Sharmaine
         3. Azarcon, Laila

Junior 1. Landicho, Miguel Iseah
          2. Tenoso, Khevin
          3. Cruz, Laura Sofia

Kids 1. Landicho, Rommel
        2. Nanzan, Jamillah
        3. Jagua, Ro Linus

The Top 10 Finishers

Rank	Memory Athlete	Championship Points
1	Abrina, Johann Randall	5,021
2	Dianquinay, Mary Sharmaine	2,987
3	Landicho, Miguel Iseah	2,442
4	Tenoso, Khevin	2,144
5	Azarcon, Laila	1,818
6	Ocray, Robbie Shem	1,773
7	Carandang, Christopher E.	1,596
8	Cunanan, Argie	1,568
9	Landicho, Rommel	1,401
10	Desingaño, Rachelle	1,370

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