Chess Players and Memory.

[Bruce Draney]

Recently there was a thread going about the relationship between
chess players and intelligence, but I believe that a much more
important correlation may exist between chess playing ability and
memory.

Harry N. Pillsbury for example played a simul in Lincoln Nebraska in
1901. Hundreds participated in the event and Pillsbury even played
checkers and whist and some of the games blindfolded. A Lincoln
reporter was even allowed to consult with his friend. The two men
achieved a favorable position, but blundered away the win and the game
ended in a draw much to their disappointment. A year later in 1902,
Pillsbury returned to Lincoln to play another simul. The reporter and
his friend returned with their scoresheet from the previous year.
They played Pillsbury again and after the simul was over they
approached him and introduced themselves. They said that they had
played him the previous year and they were wondering if he would look
at their scoresheet and tell them where they had lost their advantage.
He promptly told them to put their scoresheet away and then proceeded
to play through the entire game from memory up until the point that
they had made a mistake. He then showed them what they should have
done that would have won the game. Keep in mind that Pillsbury
constructed the entire game from a year before from memory and that he
had played hundreds of games in simuls all over the country in the
year that had passed. There is no doubt in my mind that Harry N.
Pillsbury could have possibly challenged for the World Championship
had he not died prematurely. His memory was obviously quite
incredible.

Loren Schmidt formerly of Nebraska now of Washington State, has an
incredible memory too. Loren could reconstruct games that he had
played against you 10-15 years previously from memory without a
scoresheet. He could set up a position from one of the thousands of
games he had played in his career, show you some error either he or
his opponent had made and then even tell you what year, what round,
and what event it took place in. It wouldn't have surprised me if he
could have told me how much time each player had on his clock when the
winning or losing move was made either.

Does anybody else have some incredible stories that illustrate the
tremendous memories that some of these great players have? It seems
logical to me that memory and the ability to recognize patterns seen
before would be a much more critical ability to have as a chess player
than mere IQ or intelligence.

Best Regards,

Bruce

[Ron Moskovitz]

For what it's worth, I'm not sure that a fantastic memory makes
great player more than being a great players makes for a fantastic
chess memory: the two seem intertwined.

From my own experience, I know that I am much better at remembering
positions which occur in my games now than I was when I had just started
studying chess seriously. Exposure and experience has improved my
chess memory.

Similary, since exposure and experience make me a better player, if
these relationships maintain their correlation, one would expect
a GM--who has spend much more time at the board than I have--to
have an even better memory.

(Now I have a sense of how much attention I was playing during a game
by how many of the critical positions I can recreate a few hours or a few
days later. When I'm just playing casually, without really caring,
I often forget everything of signifigance an hour later. WHen I'm
really "on" and playing well, however, I can usually remember most of the
moves, and especially any 'critical postisions'/combinational ideas
for days afterward.)

-Ron

[Rolf W. Tueschen]

Bruce Draney <bdr...@esu3.esu3.k12.ne.us> wrote:

>Recently there was a thread going about the relationship between
>chess players and intelligence, but I believe that a much more
>important correlation may exist between chess playing ability and
>memory.

Definetely. I tried several times in the last months to open a thread
about eidetic memory. For me there's no doubt that all the actual top
players have this sort of memory.

It enables them to almost "read" in their memory pages which they can
*see* like photographs.

Note that you either were born with this ability or you don't have it.
You can't learn it.

For a normal chessplayer it is selfevident that such a *tool* is a
phantastic help in chess.

But in top chess where both avtives use this memory the outcome is still
based on other psychological, also physical factors. Errors and
oversight, miscalculations and wrong speculations happen all the time.

BTW in all chess levels. You will always find that we normal players
have to torture our brain with all the opening lines and more or less
well memorized special situations and rules. But we don't even remember
the exact moves of our own games.

And surely some eidetics also play in lower chess levels. In the past
this was mostly due to the lack of encyclopaedical literature and
computers.
But also today top chess isn't possible without a thorough fundamental
chess education.

> Harry N. Pillsbury for example played a simul in Lincoln Nebraska in
>1901. Hundreds participated in the event and Pillsbury even played
>checkers and whist and some of the games blindfolded. A Lincoln
>reporter was even allowed to consult with his friend. The two men
>achieved a favorable position, but blundered away the win and the game
>ended in a draw much to their disappointment. A year later in 1902,
>Pillsbury returned to Lincoln to play another simul. The reporter and
>his friend returned with their scoresheet from the previous year.
>They played Pillsbury again and after the simul was over they
>approached him and introduced themselves. They said that they had
>played him the previous year and they were wondering if he would look
>at their scoresheet and tell them where they had lost their advantage.
>He promptly told them to put their scoresheet away and then proceeded
>to play through the entire game from memory up until the point that
>they had made a mistake. He then showed them what they should have
>done that would have won the game. Keep in mind that Pillsbury
>constructed the entire game from a year before from memory and that he
>had played hundreds of games in simuls all over the country in the
>year that had passed. There is no doubt in my mind that Harry N.
>Pillsbury could have possibly challenged for the World Championship
>had he not died prematurely. His memory was obviously quite
>incredible.

No doubt about it. But he was never a serious challenger for Steinitz or
Lasker. In contradiction to your assumption I believe that even the
eidetics don't guarantee you the title crown. Especially in those
historical times in the 19th century the better chess understanding
couldn't be beaten by simple memory power. Pillsbury had the power to
play hundreds of games simultaneously but that doesn't mean that he
could focus on a single top chess game with the same "power". He must
have "felt" this. Otherwise it couldn't be understood why he did so much
harm to his nervous system by playing these extremely dangerous blind
sessions.

> Loren Schmidt formerly of Nebraska now of Washington State, has an
>incredible memory too. Loren could reconstruct games that he had
>played against you 10-15 years previously from memory without a
>scoresheet. He could set up a position from one of the thousands of
>games he had played in his career, show you some error either he or
>his opponent had made and then even tell you what year, what round,
>and what event it took place in. It wouldn't have surprised me if he
>could have told me how much time each player had on his clock when the
>winning or losing move was made either.

> Does anybody else have some incredible stories that illustrate the
>tremendous memories that some of these great players have? It seems
>logical to me that memory and the ability to recognize patterns seen
>before would be a much more critical ability to have as a chess player
>than mere IQ or intelligence.

Surely. IQ/intelligence is *measured* with tests. Which are grounded on
visional parameters. So, also here you'd find that eidetics helps a
*lot* to achieve higher points/percentages in intelligence tests.

But the retro isn't true. There're even these idiot savant cases with
definetely a special eidetic memory but which is limited to certain
spooky tasks. For instance for the memorizing of the weekdays for the
past and future century(!).

Oh no, what did I *say*?
Aren't we players limited in a comparable way? :)

What I should add. When a youngster realizes this stupendous ability
he/she will hopefully guided into more important fields of human "data"
than chess alone.

Greetings and thanks for your interesting post,

Rolf Tueschen

> Best Regards,

> Bruce

[Ryan]

Salutations,

Bruce Draney wrote:
>
> Recently there was a thread going about the relationship between
> chess players and intelligence, but I believe that a much more
> important correlation may exist between chess playing ability and
> memory.

While being slightly nocturnal, I saw a late night infomercial touting
"Mega-Memory" This strange overly excited man showed how he had
memorized a random list which was presented to him seconds before. He
could move quickly backwards forwards and inside out through the items
of the list. He then demonstrated how he had memorized an entire
phonebook and could give the number for any selected name. It was
impressive, and said that his books and tapes would teach anyone this
method. My question is has anyone seen this, or used it for going
through MCO or memorizing all of Mikhail Tal's games? Seems like it
might be useful... I wonder if it slices and dices as well....

Regards,
Ryan
--
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[Rolf W. Tueschen]

Ryan <rr...@sprynet.com> wrote:

>Salutations,
>
> Bruce Draney wrote:
> >
> > Recently there was a thread going about the relationship between
> > chess players and intelligence, but I believe that a much more
> > important correlation may exist between chess playing ability and
> > memory.

>While being slightly nocturnal, I saw a late night infomercial touting
>"Mega-Memory" This strange overly excited man showed how he had
>memorized a random list which was presented to him seconds before. He
>could move quickly backwards forwards and inside out through the items
>of the list. He then demonstrated how he had memorized an entire
>phonebook and could give the number for any selected name. It was
>impressive,

Yes, for laymen. But if you knew about eidetics (please check your
library) all this came back to *normal*.

The point is of course that *normally* people with this ability DOn't go
into circus/TV shows ...

>and said that his books and tapes would teach anyone this
>method.

This is absolutely crap and nonsense. Sure you could train your memory
capabilities, but this has absolutely *nothing* to do with eidetic
memory.

>My question is has anyone seen this, or used it for going
>through MCO or memorizing all of Mikhail Tal's games? Seems like it
>might be useful... I wonder if it slices and dices as well....

Your questions are interesting but no one of the top players would like
to talk about this. It would destroy the myths about simuls and blind
sessions ... (Note that eidetic memory desn't guarantee the World
title.)

[Bruce Draney]

Blackstar wrote:
>
> This is going to sound cheesy probably. First off, I am not really
> sure what Rolf is talking about, but I am familiar with the "Mega
> Memory" thing. I remember seeing his infomercial I guess about 7
> years ago, and my mom actually bought the course for my sister who was
> having a lot of trouble in school. I've always had a good memory, but
> curiosity got the better of me and so I went through the tapes and
> exercises of the "Mega Memory" course. I imagine that with continued
> practice I could have gotten to the same level as the guy who sells
> the stuff. Basically it is an association thing, you create images in
> your mind which contain the information you are trying to remember. I
> got to where I could rattle off lists of names and numbers, probably
> around 100 at a time without much effort. You could give me the move
> list to a game and I could have it memorized in a couple of minutes.
> That was about 5 years ago though, I haven't practiced the pneumonics
> techniques in some time and so I'm probably very rusty. You get to be
> very creative with it and it can be pretty cool, say for instance you
> were trying to memorize the Najdorf variation of the sicilian defense.
> Maybe I'd picture this huge Italian guy with e4c5 tattooed on his
> bicep, and that he walked up to me and screamed Nf3! As soon as he
> does that a black cat races between us and I notice he has a black
> collar with E6 engraved in gold letters. A little old white lady comes
> up to us and says "My name is Dee (D), I'm looking for (4) my cat E6,
> have you seen him?" At that point the big Italian guy grabs Dee
> (cxd4) and the cop at the corner notices and grabs the big Italian
> before he can escape (Nxd4). He calls for backup "a6 to base, a6 to
> base" ...and so on.... it's kind of a strange way of thinking at
> first, but it becomes second nature after awhile ...you still have to
> practice it though or eventually you'll lose it. This is not some
> kind of natural ability thing, it's a practiced technique for
> improving memorization skills, not improving learning. Anyway, my
> loose change...
>
> <--Will-->
>
> On 7 Aug 1997 07:27:40 GMT, TUESCHEN.MEDIZ...@t-online.de

> (Rolf W. Tueschen) wrote:
>
> >Ryan <rr...@sprynet.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Salutations,
> >>
> >> Bruce Draney wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Recently there was a thread going about the relationship between
> >> > chess players and intelligence, but I believe that a much more
> >> > important correlation may exist between chess playing ability and
> >> > memory.
> >
> >>While being slightly nocturnal, I saw a late night infomercial touting
> >>"Mega-Memory" This strange overly excited man showed how he had
> >>memorized a random list which was presented to him seconds before. He
> >>could move quickly backwards forwards and inside out through the items
> >>of the list. He then demonstrated how he had memorized an entire
> >>phonebook and could give the number for any selected name. It was
> >>impressive,
> >

I think what Rolf is referring to in his posts is an innate ability
by some people to recall complex things such as chess positions, word
lists or numbers from memory despite long time periods in between or
large volumes of such information. Some people would call this a
"photographic memory". Rolf is calling it eidetics. He can of course
clarify himself I am misstating his view. What you are talking about
is more along the lines of ways to enhance memory or retain
information. Use of word association or key words is not the same as
having a photographic memory. Certainly a person could train
themselves using the memory techniques mentioned in the infomercial to
improve their memory and retention. I would suspect that it would
probably improve one's chess play to a certain extent. A person with
a photographic memory could merely look at a page once and tell you
word for word what it said despite a cursory glance. A person trained
in speed reading or this method referred to in your post could tell
you what the pages read said, I don't know if the person would be able
to say the 5th word in sentence five is ..... There is a difference
between the two systems.

Best Regards,

Bruce

[Rolf W. Tueschen]

Bruce Draney <bdr...@esu3.esu3.k12.ne.us> wrote:

> I think what Rolf is referring to in his posts is an innate ability
>by some people to recall complex things such as chess positions, word
>lists or numbers from memory despite long time periods in between or
>large volumes of such information. Some people would call this a
>"photographic memory". Rolf is calling it eidetics. He can of course
>clarify himself I am misstating his view. What you are talking about
>is more along the lines of ways to enhance memory or retain
>information. Use of word association or key words is not the same as
>having a photographic memory. Certainly a person could train
>themselves using the memory techniques mentioned in the infomercial to
>improve their memory and retention. I would suspect that it would
>probably improve one's chess play to a certain extent. A person with
>a photographic memory could merely look at a page once and tell you
>word for word what it said despite a cursory glance. A person trained
>in speed reading or this method referred to in your post could tell
>you what the pages read said, I don't know if the person would be able
>to say the 5th word in sentence five is ..... There is a difference
>between the two systems.

> Best Regards,

> Bruce

=====================================================

Thanks, Bruce.

1. You translated exactly what I wanted to say.
2. *But* I didn't want to adorn myself with borrowed plumes. In fact I
gave just a little quote out of my scientifical knowledge which is still
full of holes!
3. And a final *but*. I didn't want to post just that. Perhaps I'm too
elitarian but posting things like division by zero makes infinite ...
may sound cool but doesn't interest me at all. My main point was the
observation that all these eidetics/with their extraordinary
(photographic) memory in *chess* have anything other to do than talking
about this. That is the psychologically interesting point. And because
nobody talks about I am able to say -- without insulting someone
personally -- that it is a pity for one and second a certain cheat in
the world of chess where everything else is stored in big databases and
computers. But the most important assumption for world class chess, the
extraordinary memory, is never mentioned. I want to make sure that I
don't want to say that high classed chess is only possible with this
regarding the whole history of chess. But today's top stars can't win a
cat.19 tournament *without*.

4. A nice episode of the last Dortmund tournament. [I give it from
memory and didn't check the video again.] As an opening attraction V.
Hort played P. Leko in a both *blind* blitz. The game was transmitted by
german television and commented in-between by H. Pfleger, a german GM.
Instead of blitz you better think of a 3 to 5 seconds during thought
process per move. Peter won the game by far with the black pieces.
Vlasti one time wanted to play an impossible move but was granted a
correction. But there he already was losing anyway.
But the point of the story for our memory debate is the following.

We all know that Hort is one of the best simultan and blind showstars of
the scene. After the game Pfleger asked the two, but especially the
winner, how they could play such a game without seeing (!) the pieces,
and he asked Leko, if he kept the move notation in his mind or the
diagrams ...

"No", Leko answered, "I just *play* I don't recall anything, I just play
on and on." :))

See, what I mean?

For these guys their astonishing memory is so *natural*, they don't have
to help themselves with *colours* or *stories* which connect the
allegedly meaningless data items. No. These guys play a blind one on a
virtual board with normal (virtual) pieces, you know. Coming back to
Blackstar's nice story of his sister and himself, it should be clear by
now that the two players of the blitz hadn't the *time* to invent
*keys*/clues to better remember the situation on the board. They played
it live at high speed.

Please all out there, check your memory for yourself. Is it quite
outstanding? Just do the following.

Let your friend or life partner do the following.

He/she should take some of twenty different random numberes or let's say
parts of the kitchen or famous sportstars (random I said, so, don't take
the whole team of the Boston Stranglers in Football, it's too easy).
These should be written down in a row to be able to later check the
results.
Then these items should be read either by your partner or yourself in a
cool manner one after one with a slow voice and some of 3 seconds
in-between pausing.
The task after this is simple. Pause for say three minutes. Then you
have to recall the twenty items and start to spell them one after
another.

If you got 7 (seven) you're very good. One could still call you
*normal*.

But if you recall all of them or say 18 to 20. Then you should seriously
check your learning abilities. Then you don't have yet a direct
photographical memory but one which one could name auditory mem.
The effects are almost the same. You should start a chess career. :)
And don't forget to tell this beginning story here later on, ok?

You could do the same if you don't have a partner, just by taking cards,
mixing them hidden, then taking 20 out of the pack hidden, and then
looking at the numbers/colours for a few moments one by one. Put them
down again hidden and try to recall. With this experiment you could back
up Blackstar's theory of the learning ability to a certain extent. We
all know that good card players can recall the played cards. Otherwise
you can't play bridge or the money games in Las Vegas. But I once saw
that they play with a double 52 pack of cards, if I remember right.
That's too much without a long training.

Greetings to all

Rolf Tueschen