PHILADELPHIA — As Mike Mirski sits down with a pack of playing cards, he starts spinning the most incredible yarn. It involves a giant club sandwich, a big lily pad and a monk sitting on the moon.
None of it is true, of course. The surreal tale is just a mnemonic device enabling the 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania sophomore to remember the order of the cards in the fully shuffled deck.
It’s one of several mental skills being tested today at the USA Memory Championship in New York. Mirski and his Penn teammates are set to measure their recall powers against squads including four-time defending champ Hershey High School of Pennsylvania and a group of Hershey moms.
About two dozen individuals also are competing in the event, now in its 15th year. Other contests require memorizing an unpublished poem, recalling biographical information of random people, remembering rows of random numbers and matching about 100 names with faces.
Event founder Tony Dottino, a former IBM executive turned business consultant, said he established the competition as a way to promote the capabilities of the human brain.
“You are not stuck with the memory you were born with,” he said.
A group of Hershey moms who have watched their teens compete for years decided to join the contest this year. Dana Hamilton said her participation has spurred some “cool conversations” with son Nate about strategies — exchanges she wouldn’t have otherwise had.
But there’s not much mother-child rivalry, she said.
“I don’t think they’re worried in the least about us coming too close to their scores,” Hamilton said.
