Results are in for both calculation categories of this year’s Mind Sports Olympiad!
Mental Calculations World Championship
This year 12 entrants competed in this event – from Germany, Switzerland and the UK. Chris Bryant was defending his position as 2017-2018 champion, with the added difficulty of not having slept the previous night! 5-time gold medalist George Lane was competing for his 20th time, while for others like Dirk Ewers and Martyn Hamer it was their first time in this event.
Wenzel Grüß – still eligible for the Juniors category – had achieved gold in the Blitz every year since 2016 but this was the first year to get a medal in the championship.
Unfortunately absent were Gert Mittring – one of the most experienced and successful calculators in the MSO over many years, and Mohammad El-Mir, a very promising youth competitor.
- Wenzel Grüß (3329)
- Chris Bryant (2837)
- George Lane (2080)
- Andreas Berger (1467)
- Pascal Kaul (1288)
- Andy Robertshaw (1035)
- Daniel Timms (809)
- Matthew Hathrell (806)
- Martyn Hamer (727)
- Dirk Ewers (399)
- Marc Tastet (316)
- Tim Kenyon (278)
This year the 3.5-hour paper was significantly expanded in volume – with a maximum score of 4040 points. Some of the more difficult questions were:
- how many digits does 97^97 have?
- calculating a 9th root to 3 significant figures
- sorting lists of similar fractions into size order
The exact paper is now available here in PDF format as questions only or with questions and answers.
For examples of the more standard questions you can use the Pegasus simulator.
Mental Calculations Blitz
With many competitors resting before the championship event, this year only 5 people competed, making it an ideal event for beginners like Victor Espinosa to join for the first time.
Wenzel Grüß achieved his 3rd gold medal, with only one wrong question out of the four hundred in the paper! Andreas Berger came second, winning his first-ever MSO medal, and Pascal Kaul took the bronze.
- Wenzel Grüß (1832)
- Andreas Berger (1508)
- Pascal Kaul (1444)
- Daniel Timms (1231)
- Victor Espinosa (605)
Congratulations to the medal winners Wenzel, Chris, George, Andreas and Pascal for some extremely high scores! The next event in the calendar is the Junior Mental Calculations World Championship – results will be available here soon after the 23rd September.
In the exact paper with answers, the tasks are presented in horizontal form (for example, 31245+345678, 25869584*5860457, etc.). In the competition, can all the tasks be presented in vertical form instead, as in the MCWC?
Hi Marc – I look forward to seeing you at the MCWC at the end of this month!
You must contact the organizers of the MSO if you wanted to compete with the questions in a different format, but I doubt that it would be permitted. They can make the text bigger for competitors with poorer eyesight, but otherwise everyone had exactly the same paper.
Congratulations for everyone. Let’s hope I can make it for next year!
Is there somebody out there able to do this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzozBKcJSEw&feature=youtu.be
Please let me know.
I also think it could be a fine new sport for everyone. There are only a few sports combining mental chills with physics. I only know underwater chess and boxing&chess.
I think it could be like that.
9 categories (each category splitted in 3 separate undercategories: simple, medium, hard.
Simple: range from 1-3
Medium: range from 4-6
Hard: range 7-9
So in total 27 rounds
1. round: a*b (points 1,2,3)
2. round: a*ab (points 4,5,6)
3. round: ab*ab (7,8,9)
4. round: ab*abc (10,11,12)
5. round: abc*abc (13,14,15)
6. round: abc*abcd (16,17,18)
7. round: abcd*abcd (19,20,21)
8. round: abcd*abcde (22,23,24)
9. round: abcde*abcde (25,26,27)
So perfect score is 378
My best score is 306
Rules:
The task must be shouted to the person, when he headed the ball once.
When the ball felt on the ground before the answer was said the attempt
is failed.
George Lane thinks it is a good idea, even for the MSO, where it could be
performed in the big “sand box” in front of the basement restaurant.
It is action and big fun too. Even for the elder ones.