News and Resources for Competitive and Advanced Mental Calculation
Daniel Timms Hello everyone! We’ve been looking forward to a busy calendar of mental calculation events this Summer and Autumn, with 4 major competitions in the space of 4 weeks. Unfortunately however, today I sadly have to announce the cancellation of all of these. This is of course due to the current pandemic and travel restrictions, which … Read more
We’ve seen before that the maximum speed the of human brain is about 60 bits per second, which of course is super slow compared an electronic calculator. However it’s not the only challenge that the human brain faces when performing difficult mental math! Imagine you were asked to to find out what the most popular … Read more
Hello everyone! It’s been quiet over the past few months in the world of competitive Mental Math – so here is a collection of updates from these months: Upcoming Competitions You’ll be aware of the disruption caused by the fight against coronavirus. As it stands, all of the competitions scheduled for this year are still … Read more
Note: due to the coronavirus this event has been postponed until 2021, and during 2020 there will be an online event taking place instead. Original Announcement: Registration is open for the Junior Mental Calculation World Championship 2020! The event will be held on the 15th – 17th October 2020 in Bielefeld (Germany) although many participants will … Read more
Our guest today is Wenzel Grüß, a 17-year-old Math prodigy from Germany. In the last 2 years he has achieved gold medals in the Junior Mental Calculation World Championship (JMCWC), Mental Calculation World Cup (MCWC) and the MSO World Championship, making him one of the most brilliant and well-known mental calculators of 2020. He has also … Read more
Registration is now open for the Mental Calculation World Cup 2020! (Organized by Ralf Laue) The event will be held on the 21st – 23th August 2020. This year it will be held in Paderborn (Germany) at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum. Applications are accepted until 1st May 2020. This will be the 9th World Cup … Read more
Mohammad El-Mir (representing Lebanon) is one of the top Mental Math prodigies of the past few years, winning his age category in the Junior Mental Calculation World Championship 5 times since 2014, often by hundreds of points! In this interview we catch up with him soon after his first appearance in the 15+ age category … Read more
This year’s JMCWC was held in Bielefeld on the 3rd-5th October – organized for the last 10 years by Caroline Merkel. 65 competitors from as far away as India, South Africa and Peru attended – and now the full results are available! Under-12s age category: The “Junior 1” event was very closely-fought this year, with … Read more
After any training is over, actually performing in a calculation competition is an opportunity for participants to demonstrate their new skills. For all future mind sports competitors – here are my top 10 tips for preparing for an enjoyable and successful experience! #1: Three nights of good sleep The brain works best when it is … Read more
This year the only calculation event at the MSO was the Mental Calculations World Championship – a 3-and-a-half hour paper created based on George Lane’s Pegasus software. Turnout was much lower this year than in previous years, with only 6 participants compared to 12 last year and 17 in 2017. In particular all of the participants … Read more