Nodas Boukovalas is Greece’s top mental calculator, and one of the most enthusiastic participants in the scene since 2010. Today we talk as he prepares for his 5th Mental Calculation World Cup.
How did you first get involved in Mind Sports?
It started in High school in the late 1990s in Greece. I participated in 2 Greek National Mathematical Olympiads (’97, ’99), after succeeding in a couple of regional contests. The difficulty level in the final Math contest got progressively higher, so ultimately I didn’t make the team of 6 students representing Greece in the annual International Mathematical Olympiad. But these competitions gave me a motivation to improve in Math!
Later in the early 2000s, through the Yahoo Mental Calculation Group, I read about the Mind Sports Olympiad and the Mental Calculation World Cup. These competitions have no age limit, so I had a new chance to be in such international Math competitions.
During MCWC 2004 and 2006, via this Yahoo group, I noticed many discussions and methods, and I meticulously observed the results of such competitions. But I was reluctant to participate, because I was busy finishing my Math and Physics degrees. Then during 2008, I was busy doing my obligatory military service in Northeast Greece, so I had to skip MCWC 2008 as well.
But since 2010, I have participated in every World Cup, and also participated in two International Memoriads (Antalya 2012 and Las Vegas 2016).
What’s your favourite memory from the competitions you’ve participated in?
I have several good memories from these competitions, but the highlight for me was when I (rather unexpectedly) won the silver medal for Square Roots in Memoriad 2012. After my mediocre Mental Square Root scores in MCWC 2012, I started training for half an hour (two 15-minute sessions) every single day for 6 weeks, but I was focusing more on accuracy, rather than speed. Some of my fellow (albeit faster) competitors made a couple mistakes in Antalya, and so to my surprise, I reached 2nd place, even ahead of Hakan Gürbaşlar, who held the World Record in Square Roots back then.
My 2nd highlight was winning the bronze medal in Calendar Calculation in Bielefeld’s MCWC 2016. But to be honest, I was expected to do well there, because my personal training scores in Calendar calculation are usually much higher than what I did in the final competition, where I solved 54 Calendar Dates in 1 minute, to get that 3rd place.
What is the most difficult mental calculation category for you?
Definitely “Flash Anzan”. I never trained regularly in Soroban or Abacus. I rather use other intuitive methods in addition, such as complements and various other pre-memorised number combinations (such as 7+7+6=20). This of course is a rather slow approach, but entails more creativity, in contrast to the pure mechanical brute-force which is provided by soroban techniques.
In Memoriad 2012 and in MCWC 2012 I was at first in awe at the difficulty of flash anzan, where the Japanese winner Naofumi Ogasawara did various exhibitions (YouTube) of adding several 5-digit numbers with just 0.5-second intervals. Then, I came to realize that regular practice in anzan explains the hyper-fast speeds of many Asian competitors.
Who do you think will be especially successful in MCWC 2018?
In combination, the 55-year-old Korean Jeonghee Lee is probably the favourite to win the MCWC 2018 contest. She’s operating on a super-high level of cognition, regarding mental arithmetic. But nothing is certain – I don’t really know the strengths of the 3 new Japanese competitors. And for the record, in the 2 previous MCWC competitions in which the Japanese participated, they won both rather emphatically! Naofumi Ogasawara in 2012 and Yuki Kimura in 2016. Their teacher Mr Ishido Kenichi is a famous Soroban trainer from Japan. So, I expect around 1 of those 3 Japanese competitors to be almost as fast as Yuki Kimura, who in turn was even faster than Naofumi Ogasawara.
Another favourite for the top 3 is Granth Thakkar, the fastest Indian I’ve ever met, and world record-holder at 20-by-20 multiplication. He won this contest in 2014. He could well be in the top 3, because after 4 years he is expected to to be faster, now that he reached adulthood. Another dark horse for the top 5 is the Spanish Marc Sanz from Valencia, who has won two 2nd places overall (2010 & 2014).
Also, the German youngsters Wenzel Grüß and Andreas Berger are definitely projected to be stronger. I estimate Wenzel could be about top 3 in Surprise tasks and around top 5 in combination. I met Wenzel in 2014. He was 12 years old and already a prodigy like now (after his huge MSO 2018 victory in London). Now at 16 years old I think he has improved a lot, especially in root-solving and prime factorization.
Last but not least, I could include myself for some potential success, but mainly just for calendar calculations. I have the highest official score (82) among all the participants. But the calendar field is especially strong this year – it also includes another 4 past medal-winners in Calendar (Georgi Georgiev, Tina Bauer, Marc Sanz and Granth Thakkar), and also Freddis Reyes, the ex- world record-holder. But the current world record holders in calendar are not participating, so I want try my best in this category.
What advice do you have for competitors entering the MCWC this year for the first time?
My advice for the dozen newcomers is to put less focus on the actual results, which come and go every year. Good results are usually just the outcome of regular practice. But what is unique in these competitions is the inspiring experience of communication with similar minds. Every competitor has his own mental strengths and unique knowledge, and there is something to learn from everyone. I observe other competitors’ dexterity in order to improve myself. That can only happen during meetings or actual competitions, because in most countries (mine included) there are not enough folks to make groups about manipulating the intrinsic nature of numbers.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge Nodas, and best of luck for the 2018 Mental Calculation World Cup! This event will take place at the end of September, and the results – including for Nodas and everyone else mentioned in this interview – will be shared here. You can also subscribe to receive such news by email.
You can read more from Nodas on his guest page at Art of Memory and you can connect with him directly on LinkedIn.
Daniel, thanks for your interesting questions which motivated me to describe to your readers here, few things that happen during MCWC and the Memoriad. Regarding calculations, despite the technological dominance of the pocket calculators over humans during the last decades, there are still many of us going to such competitions, even just for a few days, and to try to re-awaken some analytical areas inside our brains. Such Mind Sports offer an insight on the limits of unaided human brains. Actually, our only aid in MCWC is a pen and paper to write down the final result, but just for practical reasons so that there will be uniformity and objectivity in the scoring system. Good luck to you as well in MCWC 2018.