What the Millennium Standard asks for in each World Memory Championship event, and how your own scores convert to championship points.
If you have ever wondered whether 100 digits is a good score, or what it would take to be competitive, the Millennium Standard is the closest thing memory sport has to a yardstick. It gives every event a target, and it turns scores from very different events into one comparable number. This guide explains what the standard is, lists the target for each of the ten events, and shows you how to convert your own results so you can see where you stand.
A quick warning before the numbers: the figures below come from the World Memory Sports Council's 2021 revision of the standards. They are reviewed periodically, so treat this article as a way to understand the system and check the WMSC's current table before setting a serious goal.
The idea is borrowed from the decathlon. In a decathlon, a 100 metre sprint time and a javelin throw are measured in different units, so a scoring table converts each one into points that can be added together. The Millennium Standard does the same job for memory. Each of the ten events has a target score, set above the level any competitor had reached when the standard was written. Reaching that target in an event is worth 1000 points. Do it in all ten and you have a perfect total of 10,000.
For most events the conversion is a simple ratio:
Championship points = (your raw score ÷ the standard) × 1000
Two events do not work this way, and we will come to them below. Because the ratio is linear, it is easy to reason about: scoring half the standard gives 500 points, and scoring a tenth gives 100.
These are the standards from the 2021 table, expressed in the units each event is scored in.
These are deliberately extreme. They sit above the records at the time they were set, so no one earns 10,000 points in practice. Their job is to be a fixed, shared ruler rather than a realistic goal for a first competition.
Here is the ratio applied to some round numbers, so you can see how the scale feels in each event. Remember that these are raw scores as they would be marked by an arbiter, with any row or column penalties already applied.
Two things stand out. First, the same effort buys very different championship points in different events. A beginner can score 500 in Names and Faces with 100 correct names, but the same beginner would need thousands of digits to match that in Binary. The standard reflects how hard each event is at the top, not how hard it is to get started. Second, the totals do not mean you should chase the event where the numbers look best. They mean you should know what each event rewards.
Spoken Numbers uses a square root. The published formula is the square root of your score multiplied by 47.30, which works out to 1000 × the square root of (score ÷ 447). Because of the root, early digits are worth far more than later ones:
Doubling your digits from 100 to 200 adds only about 200 points, while getting from zero to 100 earns 473. If you are new to Spoken Numbers, that is encouraging: the first stretch of progress is the most rewarding one.
Speed Cards is timed, so lower is better and the maths is inverted. The championship version is 1000 × (16.02 ÷ your time in seconds), all raised to the power of 0.75. In practice:
Note that this is a different scale from the event's own score, where a 25-second deck is worth exactly 1000. The event score ranks competitors within Speed Cards, and the championship conversion lets that result be added to the other nine. Convert an event score with the Speed Cards points calculator.
Championship points are useful for comparing events, but they are a poor thing to train toward. A target like "150 digits with no mistakes in five minutes" is something you can practice tomorrow. Use the standard afterwards, to see which event is currently your strongest.
Convert your best recent score in each event you have tried. If one event sits at 400 and another at 80, the gap usually has an explanation: a system you know well versus one you have barely started. Closing a gap in a neglected event tends to be quicker than squeezing more out of your best one.
These conversions use marked scores, so mistakes have already cost you. A row of digits with two errors is worth zero however much you memorized. Our guide to memory championship scoring rules shows where those points go.
Standards are reviewed and raised over time, so a number you convert against today may be outdated in a few years. Use a fixed revision when you compare your own progress over months, so the ruler does not move under you.
If you have not yet decided which events to train, read what each memory championship discipline tests. When you are ready to try one, the training drills use the real World-format rules, so your results line up with the numbers in this article.
