Derby memory man smashes three world records
Ben Pridmore, of Hartington Street, memorised a row of 930 noughts and ones in just five minutes at the weekend contest in London.
The 31-year-old, a qualified accountant, also accurately recalled the order of seven packs of playing cards in 10 minutes and an 818-digit number on his way to the crown.
He said: "It's something everyone can do. But I'm still pretty hopeless at remembering people's names.
"The standard in the competition gets tougher each year, I have to keep on my toes.
"It was great to win, particularly as it was the second year running."
The win means Mr Pridmore – who has an IQ of 159 – has now qualified for the World Memory Championships, a competition he won in 2004. It takes place in Bahrain in October.
The victory also means the grandmaster has regained the coveted number one spot on the world ranking list for so-called memory sports, dethroning rival Dr Gunther Karsten.
Mr Pridmore holds the official world record for memorising the order of a randomly-shuffled 52-card deck, a feat he achieved just 26.28 seconds.
Besides memory sports, he is also famous for his mental calculation skills and took part in the World Mental Calculation Championships 2004 and 2006.
He plays Othello and was the World Intelligence Champion 2001, an event which took place during the Mind Sports Olympiad in London.
Mr Pridmore worked as a credit control administrator for Parkhouse Recruitment, in Derby, before being made redundant. He now works as a financial analyst at Boots and has written How To Be Clever, a book on memory training and party tricks.
In May, he won the Derby Memory Championship, while last year he finished first in the UK memory tournament and runner-up in the world and German championships.
He remembers playing card orders and lists of 10 numbers at a time – including binary codes – by linking them to images. He draws on what he knows most about to come up with his images, particularly cartoon characters.
"For example, Homer Simpson is the nine of hearts and three of hearts. Bugs Bunny is the five of hearts and six of diamonds, and so on," he said.
"It takes a lot of work, I was not immediately brilliant, but it's achievable by anybody."
Mr Pridmore, who dropped out of university in his first year, admits he was mediocre at school, apart from maths, because he hated revision, but has now learned that "practice makes perfect".
He said his family have a laugh when he forgets things, but his grandmother, 88-year-old Dorothy Robotham, of Chilwell, is his biggest fan.
However, his memory career has not been without its lesser moments.
In January, he was shown up by Ayumu, a seven-year-old male ape brought up in captivity in Japan.
The primate did three times as well as Mr Pridmore at a computer game, which involved remembering the position of numbers on a screen.
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memory man: Ben Pridmore
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