Question on Memorization

[Aris Marghetis]

Hi Aris, the idea of not re-shuffling between hand for 3 consecutive hands is designed to apply to heads-up poker only. Not multiplayer poker. And the result of that is that a tournament could be held consisting of heads-up elimination matches. Now, that was done in the past, you may recall the NBC National Heads Up Texas Hold 'Em tournaments that were held for about 5 years in a row and were all televised on NBC. I watched all of those, and I found that there was almost no difference in "strategy" being discussed in different matches of players. So my argument, and my reason for thinking of this no re-shuffling idea, is that when it's heads-up play, most of the really good strategy of poker disappears.

Now think if you were watching TV coverage of a heads-up match between say Negreanu and Hellmuth (I think those two just had some heads-up virtual match recently). If for 3 consecutive hands the deck was not being reshuffled, the first hand (of each 3 hands) would be just like normal, because the deck is freshly shuffled. With the 2nd and 3rd hands, the TV announcers could go into great detail about the cards that have been seen by each player so far, and how that changes the calculations of each player. Each player would, especially by the 3rd hand, have to do much more thinking about probabilities that would otherwise be the case. This would make the play much more interesting for the TV viewer.

Even the first hand of each 3 might be affected, because there might be an increased willingness by the players to go all the way to showdown so that they get to see each other's hand and factor those cards into the calculations of the next 2 hands.

I am not sure, are the things you say about bluffing mostly applicable to multiplayer events? My comment on bluffing was only applicable to heads-up play. Perhaps it was an oversimplification to some minor degree, but from the standpoint of a TV viewer, this would not be very apparent at all and not interesting enough to hold their interest to a large degree. The NBC after about 5 tries decided not to continue the heads-up event, and I think viewer interest was not very high. So just as we try and make a chess game more interesting strategically for the viewer, I want to do the same for heads-up poker, specifically Texas Hold 'Em.

The key to that is the memorization aspect, making it a bit relevant to this thread.

oh ok, we were talking different things, I was thinking regular full tables, please forget about my post

[Mario Moran-Venegas]

I have a question on memorizing entire games. Over the years, here and there, I've seen mention of this practice. For example, I once read that Lev Psakhis studied and memorized Fischer's entire oeuvre while on his way to the GM title. I recall a Canadian master saying, here at Chesstalk, that he often memorized games that interested him so that he could then study the notes and analyze in his head and not have to fiddle with a board. The book GM Ram recommends memorization of 59 games in full. So my question, for people who do this kind of thing: are there any memorization techniques you would recommend or is the memorization of full games just done by rote - a brute force exercise?

Timur Gareyev definitely used a non-brute force approach. From our Canadian memory expert Francis Rodrigues I get that it takes a method.

[Francis Rodriguez]

Timur Gareyev definitely used a non-brute force approach. From our Canadian memory expert Francis Rodrigues I get that it takes a method.

Thank you Mario!

I memorized GM RAM twenty years ago, when Rashid Ziyatdinov
was still an IM. Did it make me a much stronger player. Yes, it did!

But therein lies a tale. I was no longer interested in competition, it was
merely an experiment in the vast fields of memory I was researching.

Wanting to memorize GM RAM in a short while is akin to an adult buying
a piano manual, and hoping to play Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto!

No teacher, no tools, no methodology, no years of structured training!

[Hans Jung]

I use a simpler method these days - the cell phone and its camera. For example: 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 c5 (take a picture here) 7.e4 Nxe4 8.Qf3 cxd4 9.Qxf5 Nd6 (take a picture here) 10.Bxc4 e6 11.Bb5+ Ke7 12.Nd5+ exd5 13.Ng6+ fxg6 14.Bg5 checkmate (take a picture here)

or 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4 f6 (take a picture here) 7.Bd3 c5 8.Qh5+ Kf8 (take a picture here) 9.Nxd5 fxg5 10.Rh3 g4 (take a picture here) 11.Nf4 Nxe5 12.dxe5 gxh3 (take a picture here) 13.Bxh7 Rxh7 14.Qxh7 h2 15.Ke2 h1=Q (take a picture here) 16.Ng6+ Kf7 17.Nh8+ Qxh8 (take a picture here) 18.Qxh8 Nc6 19.Qh5+ Kg8 20.Nh3 Qxg2 (take a picture here) 21.Qe8+ Bf8 22.Ng5 Nxe5 23.c4 Qg4+ 24.Kf1 Qxc4+ 25.Kg1 Qg4+ 26.Kf1 Bd7 (take a picture here)

[Francis Rodriguez]

I use a simpler method these days - the cell phone and its camera. For example: 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 c5 (take a picture here) 7.e4 Nxe4 8.Qf3 cxd4 9.Qxf5 Nd6 (take a picture here) 10.Bxc4 e6 11.Bb5+ Ke7 12.Nd5+ exd5 13.Ng6+ fxg6 14.Bg5 checkmate (take a picture here)

or 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4 f6 (take a picture here) 7.Bd3 c5 8.Qh5+ Kf8 (take a picture here) 9.Nxd5 fxg5 10.Rh3 g4 (take a picture here) 11.Nf4 Nxe5 12.dxe5 gxh3 (take a picture here) 13.Bxh7 Rxh7 14.Qxh7 h2 15.Ke2 h1=Q (take a picture here) 16.Ng6+ Kf7 17.Nh8+ Qxh8 (take a picture here) 18.Qxh8 Nc6 19.Qh5+ Kg8 20.Nh3 Qxg2 (take a picture here) 21.Qe8+ Bf8 22.Ng5 Nxe5 23.c4 Qg4+ 24.Kf1 Qxc4+ 25.Kg1 Qg4+ 26.Kf1 Bd7 (take a picture here)

Awesome Hans!
There's a huge body of work on the many facets
of how the mind visualizes, memorizes and analyzes,
in both the "Blindfold Chess" book (Hearst & Knott)
and in your magnum opus, the Blindfold Chess thread
here - your work there is simply outstanding Hans!

As always, it's an ever-metamorphosing field,
with new ideas of memory evolving all the time.

I have much of George Koltanowski's ideas and
methods, which I found most fascinating of all!
Alekhine's, Gareyev's, etc, all quite intriguing.

Memory methods haven't changed much in the last
200 years (all still use the 'Major' system)
which is sad. And not much of these can be used
to memorize chess games or chess positions.

To give you an idea -
Dominic O'Brien is one of the world's foremost
mnemonists/memory record-breakers, and has written
a number of best-selling memory books. As I recall,
in his "Perfect Memory" best-seller, Chapter 20
I think, teaches one how to memorize the chess-
board, and then chess games.

An excellent treatise.....but for me, painful reading!
I'm not sure how many games you can memorize like
that - where it would be useful over the board.

(in the interests of transparency, I have a copy of
just about every memory book written, including
as far back as Cicero's "Ad Herrenium")

Btw, I found my 20-year old copy of GM RAM with all
the copious notes made on memorizing all the games
and positions. An interesting collection of games:)

Author GM Rashid Ziyatdinov's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/gmrashidzi

[Mike Ivanov]

Another chess trick; passive chess memory is a lot easier to maintain than active memory :) When Carlsen looks at a position it's a lot easier to recall than if someone asked him to set it up. Same goes for opening theory and recognizing patterns. Passive memory ftw.

[Sam Sharpe]

My memory is perfect!




It's just my recall that's not so good. :)

[Francis Rodriguez]

My memory is perfect!
It's just my recall that's not so good. :)

When you were a kid, were you a little Sharp?

[Hans Jung]

Hi Francis, thanks for the interesting post. Back in the day I memorized a lot of chess, including GM Ram but I dont think I can access it anymore. Some say you can access anything in memory but I dont think I can nor do I want to. Getting old is a heck of a thing especially with heath issues and prescription drugs wreak havoc on memory.
So Im happy to use the cell phone camera method and it acts as my long term memory recall trigger and the games I capture by this process are pure joy for me.
Those of you with younger minds and motivation by all means go ahead and use all the resources listed above for major memory projects and it would be interesting to hear how you do with that.