Castaneda tops Avesco Phl int’l memory meet

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster of Memory (GMM) Mark Anthony Castaneda used his mastery of the Speed Cards event to steal the crown from fellow GMM Erwin Balines in the first Avesco Philippine International Open Memory Championship at Eurotel Hotel North EDSA in QC over the weekend.

Balines, the 2013 national memory sport champion, paced the World Memory Sports Council-sanctioned tournament in the first nine events but Castaneda set a new national record in Speed Cards in the two-day tournament’s final event. 

Castaneda was able to memorize the exact order of a shuffled deck of playing cards in just 37.21 seconds, breaking his old mark of one minute and 10 seconds set in 2011. The world Speed Cards record, however, is 20 seconds held by Simon Reinhard of Germany.

Balines, on the other hand, memorized the deck in 1:15.65 in his first try and faltered in his second attempt, thus, yielding the crown to Castaneda.

Castaneda got an equivalent score of 742 points in Speed Cards to finish with 5,519 total points. Balines only scored 436 in the final event and finished at second place with 5,249 points.

Placing third overall was Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar of Mongolia with 4,780 and GMM Yudi Lesmana of Indonesia wound up fourth with 4,735 points. Saikhanbayar, however, set a new world record in 30 Minutes Numbers after memorizing 1,408 digits in 30 minutes. The old mark of 1,400 digits was held by Reinhard. 

At fifth place overall was 13-year-old Jamyla Lambunao of Marikina City who netted 3,609.

Lambunao, who holds three world records in the Kids division, also topped the juniors division of the tournament organized by the Philippine Mind Sports Association, Inc. and supported by Avesco, Eurotel, Center For Global Best Practices, Hotel Sogo, and JECMAT Realty.

Placing second and third respectively, in the Juniors division are Mongolians Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan (3,498) and Enkhjin Tumur (2,871).

Indonesians Muhammad Dzakiendra and Aisha Nadine Sharikha bagged the gold and silver medals, respectively, to dominate the kids division with local bet Richard Stephen Sarcos finishing third in the tournament which also featured the eight other WMSC disciplines such as Binary Numbers, Names and Faces, Abstract Images, Historic and Future Dates, Playing Cards, Speed Numbers, Random Words and  Spoken Numbers.