July will be a busy month for eastern mnemonists as it will host two Memory Championships. Today, we’ll see the Thailand Open Memory Championships be held at Bangkok and this post will largely focus on its happenings and how it will turn out. But for those people who are interested to participate in a local memory tournament, this month’s second memory event, the Philippine Memory Championships will be held on the 20th and 21st of July at Makati Medical Center Auditorium. Please go to their Facebook Events page to register.
Now, the sport where
people, both young and old, and of various backgrounds, try to memorize as many
random information as they can, is slowly growing its popularity every year in
the Philippines. We started on 2010 with just two people that ballooned the
following year into six guys. Last year saw kids, juniors, and women compete
for the first time. And now it is grown so much that we are now sending not one
but two teams to today’s 2013 Thailand Open Memory Championships. Yep, that's right;
there'll be more than 20 individuals that will represent the Philippines at the
2013 TOMC. I guess we’re just eager to defend the TOMC title from lastyear that was won by Mark Anthony Castaneda, especially now that it will truly
be an international open tournament where another country other than the
Philippines will be competing. As of the moment, I’ve only confirmed that RajJain, 183rd ranked Memory Athlete from India, will be competing and
the press releases have also said that the Japanese and Mongolian Teams will
also be throwing their hats in the game as well. But without any of the
Philippine’s (relatively) veteran mnemonists on deck, the Philippine delegation
will have their hands, or should I say heads full when they head into today’s memory
championship.
I’ve delved into writing a prediction about memory championship winners last year when I sat out that year’s World Memory
Championship. Being that I’m not participating in today’s events as well, I’ve
decided to make some prognostication again on how the tournament will end up
later today. To do this, we’ll have to rely from the previous performances of
the participants and base our predictions from that. It is a fairly
straightforward process of looking for the highest rated participants and then
throwing your dart towards the best ranked player and voila! We now have the
tournament favorite that will most likely win this year’s Thailand Open Memory
Championship.
Now, to begin, we need to have a list of
participants and their respecting rankings, official or otherwise. Being that
there are two teams from the Philippines, as there are two different memory
councils that operate here, we’ll have them in separate groups. It will be Team
Milo versus Team Antipolo. I think this will make this exercise a bit more
exciting. And here it goes;
Philippines
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| Team Milo Photo by Philippine Mind Sports Association |
Kevin Carl Aquino (Team Milo, A) 1804
Abbygale Monderin (Team Milo, A) 1773
Ydda Graceille Mae Habab (Team Milo, J) 1696
Mikhaila Paraiso (Team Milo, J) 2079
Rhojani Joy Nasiad (Team Milo, J) 1412
Kian Christopher Aquino (Team Milo, K) 1650
Miguel Landicho (Team Antipolo)
1192
Rommel Landicho (Team Antipolo)
574
Ro Linus Jagua (Team Antipolo)
692
Khevin Christian Tenoso (Team Antipolo)
619
Juliana Beatrice Tunay (Team Antipolo)
395
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| Winners from Rizal Memory Championships Photo by Marlon Bernardino |
Maria Esteliza Beran (Team Antipolo)
616
Jan Ricci Munoz (Team Antipolo)
899
Hanz Christian Natividad
(Team Antipolo)
583
Jamillah Nanzan (Team Antipolo)
454
Stephanie Fernando (Team Antipolo)
302
Denise Asuncion (Team Antipolo)
Pauline Asuncion (Team Antipolo)
Robin Simon de Jesus (Team Antipolo)
Yeisha Paculan (Team Antipolo)
Joi Ranz Munoz (Team Antipolo)
Daniel Inigo Soriano (Team Antipolo)
India
Rajendra Jain (A) 2725
So, by just looking at their past performances,
it looks like we’ll have a strong favorite from India, Raj Jain (A), with a
2725 ranking from last year’s World Memory Championship. His closest rival is,
surprisingly, a junior from Team Milo, Mikhaila Paraiso, with 2079 points. She
may also be a lock to win the junior’s division when the next best junior is
probably her team mate Ydda Graceille Mae Habab with her 1696 points.
Having said all that, let’s now look at the
intangibles, those competitors that I don’t have much information on. As
reported, there might be competitors coming from Japan and Mongolia, and of
course, the local Thais that will participate in their Memory Tournament. Now,
if the Mongolian Team will field in any of their top ten highest ranked
players, they may have a strong chance of snatching the championship away from
Raj, being that their top ten has a 2007 point ranking. Japan may challenge as
well, but their highest ranked athlete is just above 2300 points. The Thais, on
the other hand, have barely breached the 2000 point barrier and most likely out
of the running for the Open class (I’m just not exactly sure if a local competitor
can also claim a win at the open tournament.) There aren’t much information on
the kids and juniors as well, so, it will be much harder to predict who may pull
out a victory there. But of course, I’ll be cheering for my countrymen none the
less.
So there you have it! I'm looking forward to see the results later. Good luck everyone!
UPDATE: Results!
As per Raj Jain's Facebook, he just won the 2013 Thailand Open Memory Championship! Congratulations!
And according to John Burrows in the Welsh Memory Records Facebook Group, Abbygale Monderrin won three golds for the Philippines.
UPDATE 2: Stats!
Thanks to Ms. Goddard, the official results of the Thailand Open Memory Championship 2013 are now available. I've also included the picture of the Junior Champion, Miguel Iseah Landicho at the right. Also, the 2013 Thailand Memory Champion was Tawan Sunadwanichkul.
World Memory Statistics
Junior Open
Adult Open
Thailand Championships
And here are some news reports from the Philippine Media:
Pinoy memory athletes nab medals in Thailand
Aaand as usual you can follow me here:
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| Thailand Open Junior Champion: Miguel Iseah Landicho |
World Memory Statistics
Junior Open
Adult Open
Thailand Championships
And here are some news reports from the Philippine Media:
Pinoys rule memory
Aquino, Monderin 2nd at 3rd sa Thailand Memory ChampionshipPinoy memory athletes nab medals in Thailand
Follow @MemoryCoachPHL
