The Joker in the Pack

Apart from generating hugely impressive world records, the World Memory Championship to be
held over the weekend of 31st August/2nd September in Bahrain - also generates something
equally mind-boggling: the UKs Joker Mountain!

One of the ten memory disciplines in the competition is to see how many packs of cards a
competitor can commit to memory in one hour. Top competitors can memorise 20 to 25 decks - with
two hours allowed to recall them.

Cartamundi, the international playing card company, supplies six hundred new sealed decks of
cards for the annual competition. However, before they can be used competitively, each pack
needs to be unsealed, opened, the Jokers and non playing cards removed, and the pack shuffled
four times to be up to competition standard. A time consuming task!

For many years now, this Herculean task has fallen to volunteer 80-year-old Ronald Day from the
village of Turners Hill, near East Grinstead. As a result, Ronald now has the largest collection of
Jokers in the world, running into many thousands.

Surely there has to be a use for them. All suggestions welcome!

-ends- WMC118X/2007

Visit www.worldmemorychampionships.com

To contact Ronald Day for photography or for more information on the event or the 2007
competitors, call Chris Day, General Secretary on +44 (0)208 688 2598 - or email:
secretary@worldmemorychampionships.com

To contact top UK World Memory Championship competitor Ben Pridmore, call him on 01332
340275 or email zoom_zoom_ben@yahoo.co.uk (Note, the spaces are underscores)

To interview Tony Buzan, founder of the World Memory Championships, please call Ms Ray
Hodges on +44 (0)1628 894793 or email: r.hodges@hpsgroup.co.uk