The annual Mental Calculation event at the Mind Sports Olympiad took place on the 25th August—in person in London for the first time since 2019.
This year, the format returned to the original paper exam—although with a shorter time limit—plus with the experimental addition of a live event, similar to the online events of 2020 and 2021. Here, a series of questions was projected on a screen, and the participants had 20–60 seconds to calculate the answer correctly (or as accurately as possible). I was invited to set the questions for the event, and to present the final in London.
This year, unfortunately only three participants could arrange to attend the event, so it was much smaller than in recent years.
Kaloyan Geshev (age 11 from Bulgaria) was the clear winner in both rounds, including a performance on the written paper that would have won a medal in any year! In the final, there were 25 questions to answer. Kaloyan obtained correct answers to all of the exact questions, and was the most accurate in all of inexact questions, for a performance that was essentially perfect—well done!
Here are some of the questions he solved correctly under time pressure:
- Integer division: 56399424 ÷ 7484
- 13 5/7 × 4 17/36
- Square root of 7222 (solved to 13 significant figures in 60 seconds)
Aanya Gupta came second, and was celebrating her birthday by attending the mental calculation final! Amongst questions she answered correctly, were:
- Exact cube root of 370146232
- Identifying 47/15 as the closest fraction to π, from a choice of several fractions
Shaurya Gupta also participated, for his first mental calculation competition, and came 3rd behind the two more experienced calculators, including correctly identifying that, out of ten calendar dates on the screen, the only weekday not represented was Sunday.
For information about the other events in the Mind Sports Olympiad—which contains a variety of events such as board games, memory and diving chess—you can visit their official website.
The remaining international calculation competition this year is the Junior Mental Calculation World Championship, held in Germany. Registration is already closed for that event.