Magnus Carlsen's Mind-Blowing Memory! World Chess Champion tested

chess24 · 4.8M views · 2021-04-30 · 3:48

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Overview

Grandmaster David Howell tests Magnus Carlsen by showing him chess positions and asking which famous games they come from. Carlsen recognizes many almost instantly.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it as an example of expert memory built on context, such as Carlsen identifying players, tournaments and moves from positions.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2021–2022

Topics

Chess, board games & puzzles Psychology & human behavior

What people said

ninethirty · 2022-12 · Reference
Not enough context. Do you only watch football once every four years? Probably you don't care enough and have enough context of strategic moments to create memories. The more you care + context, the better the memory will be, see LeBron + Magnus. { [LINK] , [VIDEO] }
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lysp · 2022-09 · Reference
I saw a video a while ago. [VIDEO] They put a number of mid-game positions on the board, and Magnus was able to guess the players, tournament, game number, who won, what the next few moves were. Who was playing on the table next to him. What their moves were.
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matsemann · 2021-10 · Reference
There are videos of Magnus Carlsen being shown various positions, and he can instantly tell which games they are from. Like their brain has an index on postions or something. Not only that, but also can tell how the game continues. One example [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by chess24, played through YouTube.

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