Double Deck or Bust
The championship's finale is a sudden-death card round. Competitors study a shuffled double deck and then recall it in turn, and one error ends a competitor's championship. In 2019 it came down to Tschirhart and Nelson Dellis, a four-time US champion.
The official report is precise about the ending: the two competed through card 101, and only three cards remained in the second deck when Tschirhart prevailed. Three cards from a 104-card pile is the narrowest kind of margin, and it produced a first-time champion.
A field of 45
The 2019 event was contested by 45 mental athletes across seven teams, including the defending champion John Graham as well as Dellis. Two high school students reached the finals: Grace Smith of Cumberland Valley and Xuanxi Yang of Hershey.
Three championship events preceded the finale: Names and Faces, Words to Remember, and the Tea Party, also known as Three Strikes You're Out. The championship reported that four competitors completed the Tea Party and advanced to the finals, the first time that had happened.
Records broken along the way
The Names and Faces record fell three times in a single day in 2019, with Dellis setting the new mark at 235 points, a figure Wikipedia's article on the championship still lists as a record from that year.
Tschirhart's own headline number came in Words to Remember, where the official report credits him with recalling over 150 words. The championship describes him as a first-time winner who was already nationally and internationally known for his work with cards, which is the closest the report comes to a biography of the man who won it.
What the championship is
The USA Memory Championship was founded in 1997 by Tony Dottino and Marshall Tarley. Wikipedia describes its modern format as nine events: five online qualifiers, covering cards, images, names, numbers and words in 300 seconds each, and four live finals ending in Double Deck or Bust, in which finalists memorise 104 shuffled cards in five minutes.
The sources disagree about where the championship is held. The championship's own 2019 report places that edition at Penn State Harrisburg in Pennsylvania, while Wikipedia describes the competition as having moved in 2016 to Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. Both are cited here rather than reconciled.
Where the record stops
The official champions list records Tschirhart as the 2019 winner. It also shows what followed: Makenna Good took the title as virtual champion in 2020, and Nelson Dellis returned in 2021 for a fifth championship. A single name on that list is the sum of what the competition publishes about most of its champions.
No birth year, age, home city or occupation for Tschirhart appears in the sources used here, and no Wikipedia article of his own was found. The research record behind this page notes a German-language reference crediting him with a 456-digit spoken-numbers record, which the sources read here do not confirm.
Watch: Lance Tschirhart on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simon Reinhard | Germany | Winning the Extreme Memory Tournament in 2014 and 2016 | Age 35 |
| Lance Tschirhart | United States | Winning the 21st USA Memory Championship, 2019 | — |
| Scott Hagwood | United States | Winning the USA Memory Championship four years running | — |
| Oyun-Erdene Tsengelbayar | Mongolia | Spoken-numbers gold at Memoriad 2024 | — |
| Tatiana Cooley-Marquardt | United States | Winning the USA Memory Championship three times | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Won the 21st USA Memory Championship in 2019, beating Nelson Dellis in Double Deck or Bust (USAMC official report)
- The final went to card 101 with three cards left in the second deck
- Field of 45 mental athletes across seven teams; he recalled over 150 words in Words to Remember
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- The venue is given as Penn State Harrisburg by the championship and as Full Sail University, Orlando, by Wikipedia
- A reported 456-digit spoken-numbers record was not confirmed in the sources read here
- No published age, birth year, home city or occupation
Questions people ask about Lance Tschirhart
What is Lance Tschirhart known for?
Winning the 21st USA Memory Championship in 2019, beating four-time champion Nelson Dellis in the final card round.
How close was the 2019 final?
The official report says the two competed through card 101 and only three cards remained in the second deck when Tschirhart prevailed.
What is Double Deck or Bust?
The championship's finale, in which finalists memorise a shuffled double deck, 104 cards, and recall it in sudden-death turns. One error eliminates a competitor.
How old is Lance Tschirhart?
No source used here gives an age or birth year.
Who else competed in 2019?
The field held 45 mental athletes across seven teams, including defending champion John Graham and two high school students, Grace Smith and Xuanxi Yang, who reached the finals.
Did he set a record?
The official report credits him with recalling over 150 words in Words to Remember. The Names and Faces record was set that day by Nelson Dellis with 235 points.
Is Lance Tschirhart on Wikipedia?
No article of his own was found. He appears in the USA Memory Championship's own records and in the championship's Wikipedia article as the 2019 winner.
Where is Lance Tschirhart now?
Nothing after the 2019 championship appears in the sources used here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Lance’s story?
Whom did Lance Tschirhart beat in the 2019 final?
How many cards were left when the final ended?
What is the championship's final event called?
Sources
- USAMC Crowns Lance Tschirhart 21st Champion — USA Memory Championship (official), 2019-05-03
- Champions - USA Memory Championship — USA Memory Championship (official), n.d.
- USA Memory Championship — Wikipedia, n.d.
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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