The vast majority of what you need to know about our Championship Points (CP) system is already explained on this page, but here we will go into much more details. The system overall is fairly complex, but every small rule and detail is there for a reason. We think it helps make sure that your final results will be a good enough representation of your overall performance.
- In the Regular section, your overall championship score will be calculated by counting solely your best 4 results*. Usually, that will means that only images, names, words and exam will be counted. If someone in the Regular section wishes to attempt the numbers and/or cards challenges, one result from those two challenges could conceivably be counted among his or her four best results, but not two. Competitors who already have plenty of experience with numbers and cards are invited to sign up for the Advanced section instead.
- In the Advanced section, your overall championship score will be calculated by counting solely your 5 best results out of 6*.
- *One exception to the “solely your 4 (or 5) best results” rule is related to our “Bonus point system” explained below. In effect that means your worst results can still have an impact on your overall championship score, but that impact will be relatively minor and unlikely to affect your final ranking. So if you’re competing in the Regular section and you want to skip over numbers and cards, you should still feel free to do so.
The point of this system is to make it possible for someone to win even if he or she had a lot of trouble with one particular challenge. We also want to make it possible for newcomers to participate and obtain good results without necessarily having to invest a lot of time training for all 6 challenges and building a number and card system.
For each challenge, your raw score will be converted into what we call Championship Points (CP). The number of CP for each event will be calculated with a formula where your score is compared to what we call the “national standard”. The “national standard” is a partly arbitrary number based on the average of the top 3 scores ever obtained in a Canadian competition by local competitors. If you can get close to that, it means you rock. A score superior to the current national standard will be worth more than 1000 CP. If your raw score is half the current national standard, you will receive 500 CP (still a very impressive, way above average result) for this challenge. The national standard will evolve year after year as results keep getting better. All the details related to CP calculations are explained down below.
After the conversion from raw scores to CP, we will add up your 4 (in the Regular section) or 5 (in the Advanced section) best results to see who won the Regular section and who won the Advanced section. The winner of the Advanced section will be declared to the 2019 Canadian Memory Champion. Honorific titles like Junior Memory Champion will also be given out to those who have managed to obtain the best results in the Senior (60 years old or older), Junior (14 to 17 years old) and Kid (13 years old or younger) age groups. If you’re not a Canadian citizen, you’re welcome to compete as either an advanced or a regular competitor in the Open section. Competitors in the Open section aren’t eligible to win the overall championships. However, the final scoreboard will clearly indicate whether or not the winner of the Open section managed to outperform the overall winner.
Important note: Championship points are just a tool used to artificially compile the results of some very different disciplines and to provide some sort of ranking among the participants on a particular event. The formula used to calculate them can change year after year, so they shouln’t be used to compare the results from different events. If you want to compare your results to others in the long run, raw scores (X number of words correctly memorized in 10 minutes for example) are a more reliable and consistent tool for this purpose.
Championship points (CP) calculation formulas
Our CP calculation system is inspired by the IAM score calculator. It’s meant to reward efforts and to incentivize the breaking of national records. Here’s a chart explaining what the current national standards are for each challenge, how those standards were chosen and what the formula for CP calculations will be.
Temporary 2024 update: Some of the data in the chart above are outdated. The “national standards” were left unchanged for CP calculations the 2024 National Memory Championship. The canadian records at that point were 326 images, 62 names, 133 words, 512 digits and 30.4 seconds for cards. Most of those records were broken during our last event! The national standards will also need to revised upward.
Bonus points system for all events
In addition to the formulas explained above, we also use a “bonus points” system to reward some particularly cool and/or impressive aspects of your performance.
- You can gain 75, 50 or 25 bonus CP points by scoring either first, second or third among your peers in a particular discipline. The ranking is done separately in the Advanced, Regular and Open sections. That means that for each discipline, we will have a top 3 for Advanced Canadian competitors, one for Regular Canadian competitors, one for Advanced Open (international) competitors and finally possibly one for Regular Open competitors. At least 4 competitors need to be taking part in your section for this rule to be valid. If only 3 competitors are active in your section, 50 bonus CP will be given to first place while 25 bonus CP will be given to second place. If only 2 competitors are active in your section, only 25 bonus CP will be given to first place. If two or more competitors are tied for first place, they will all receive 50 bonus CP. If two or more competitors are tied for second or third place, they will all receive 25 bonus CP.
- 25 bonus CP will be given to everyone who manages to memorize at least 20 cards. It will be 50 bonus CP if you memorize at least 40 cards and 75 bonus CP if you memorize a full deck.
- 25 bonus CP will be given to everyone who manages to memorize at least 60 digits. It will be 50 bonus CP if you memorize at least 100 digits and 75 bonus CP if you memorize 150 digits or more.
- 50 bonus CP will be awarded whenever someone breaks a national record in either images, names, words, numbers or cards. This rule is only valid if the record was broken under the scoring rules used in the Advanced section. If more than one competitor break a national record at the same event, everyone involved will receive 50 bonus points.
- To incentivize good across-the-board performances, all bonus points earned will be added to your overall total, even when a particular discipline isn’t among your 4 or 5 best results. So if, for example, a competitor in the Regular section manages to memorize 100 digits in 10 minutes, the 50 bonus CP point he will have earned will be counted at the end even if numbers aren’t among his or her top 4 results.
So that’s all you needed you needed to know about our fairly complicated but very fair (we think!) scoring system. Yes the whole thing is a little complex, but that was necessary to avoid some of the pitfalls that can often occur with simpler systems. There’s no point for you to keep reading if you understood everything, but below we answer a few questions you might have.
Addendum – A few additional explanations
What’s the point of this “bonus point system”?
- We want to motivate you to try to outperform your opponent, even if it’s just by 1 word, 1 name, 1 digit or 1 second.
- We want those national records to continue to become more impressive years after years.
- We want to see more people becoming good with numbers and cards! Even your scores in those disciplines are nowhere near those crazy “national standards”, we want your efforts to be rewarded. If you can manage to memorize half a deck in 5 minutes or 60 or 100 digits in 10 minutes, that’s really cool and impressive, whether or not some people are capable of way more.
- We like the fact that it’s possible for a newcomer who doesn’t yet have a well-practiced system for numbers and cards to win the Regular section. That’s the point of the “only your 4 best results will be counted” rule for this section. On the other hand, we also want to make sure that there’s rarely a circumstance when making an effort becomes a waste of energy. Bonus points usually aren’t sufficient to affect the final ranking, but they do make sure there’s almost always something at stake.
What’s the deal with those “arbitrarily chosen” “national standards” with an asterisk (*) next to them? Why mention some results from those so-called “honorary challenge”?
Although most of those challenges have been around for a long time, some of the formats we use (like those 10 minutes formats for words and numbers) have only been officially tried twice before. In some cases, for various reasons, we felt that only taking official results into account led to an unacceptable underestimation of the currently existing level of skill in the country. The few “honorary challenge” results mentioned were by me, so I know for sure there was no cheating involved.
Why no official record for the Exam?
Because this is a new and unorthodox event. Because each exam will be unique. And because unlike other events, it’s possible to get everything or almost everything right. For all those reasons, we won’t be keeping any official records for this discipline.
What happens if a competitor in the Regular section manages to outperform everyone in the Advanced section?
This is an unlikely but not impossible problem. Well it’s close to impossible for the main adult section, but it’s not that unlikely for the Open (for non-Canadian citizens), Senior (60 years old and above), Junior (14 to 17 years old) and Kids (less than 14 years old) titles. What should we do if a 12 years old kid in the Regular section clearly outperformed all the other kids in the Advanced section? Considering our different scoring rules for all events except names and images, unfortunately there isn’t any simple solution to this problem. Here’s our very flawed and imperfect solution:
If a competitor in the Regular section appears to outperform his or her peers in the Advanced section, his or her words and numbers will be corrected again this time using the harsher Advanced rules. His or her overall number of championship points (CP) will then be recalculated by adding the results from the images, names, words, numbers and cards disciplines. Unfortunately, the Exam can’t be taken into account because it’s a completely different event if you are in the Regular section. It will be as if the Regular competitor had competed in the Advanced section but he or she had skipped the exam. Meanwhile, the overall number of CP of the Advanced competitors will remain unchanged (5 best results overall, including possibly the Exam). If after this recalculation, the “Regular” competitor ends up winning the Senior, Adult, Junior or Kid section, he or she will receive the title.
For several reasons, the “Regular” competitor would be at a clear disadvantage in this hypothetical situation. The moral of this story is the following: if you think you may have a shot at winning among your age group, don’t sign up for the Regular section!