8 ms·

Carlsen came to play an exhibition at my previous company. He played against 8 players simultaneously. Two had been chess-club players and competitively ranked.

Carlsen came to play an exhibition at my previous company. He played against 8 players simultaneously. Two had been chess-club players and competitively ranked. One employee played Carlsen to a draw. This earned several gasps from his handlers who had never seen such a thing. They asked what she was ranked and she said she wasn't with a wry smile. Truly something special to behold.

petilon 12y ago
Imagine playing chess while blindfolded. Now imagine playing against 33 people simultaneously while being blindfolded and winning 29 games and losing none. This was done by American Grandmaster Timur Gareev, see: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12187/709 http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12187/709 To do this you have keep 33 chessboards in your mind simultaneously, and track the movement of 32 pieces on each board.
- bluecalm 12y ago
  The record is even higher at 46 boards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Simultaneous_and_blindfold_records http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#... Playing a game blindfolded seems like incredible feat if you are not serious/competitive chess player. Playing several sounds like magic. The thing is though that at certain level almost anybody can play decent blindfolded game, especially vs much weaker opponent. Playing several takes some practice but it's mainly connected with not being confused (anchoring positions to something so it's easy to switch). It's really not that much more taxing on the brain as chess players have tons of positions memorized anyway. I am talking about 2-3-4 games. 10 is already very impressive to me and things like 20+ is insane even for competitive chess player standards.
  - petegrif 12y ago
    IT sounds like an incredible feat even if you are a serious/competitive chess player. And whilst it is indeed the case that 'at a certain level almost anybody can play a decent blindfolded game' that level is high.
    - ghshephard 12y ago
      I have a colleague at work who plays blindfold chess with his nine year old son on road trips. Well, it's not actually blindfold chess, neither of them are wearing blind folds - they just are able to play games without a board, which, if you think about it, is pretty amazing.
      - Tloewald 12y ago
        You just hope that the son doesn't make an especially brilliant move and cause a car accident.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - muyuu 12y ago
      I can play blindfolded and I'm nowhere near Kramnik. I've been around 17 hundreds in ELO when I played the most. I usually beat my beginner family members playing blindfolded against them. I don't think about individual pieces placed in a board but rather interactions and moves. Pieces are not located at random, you can remember where pieces are because you remember the plans, the threats and the moves that lead to a setup. If I had to remember seemingly random arrangements of pieces it would be a completely different story and much harder. Might help that I also played Shogi rather intensely and after being used to Shogi, the chess board feels very small.
- hackuser 12y ago
  On one hand that's amazing. On the other, if you're a sysadmin, could you remember the configurations of 33 servers? It's not hard to imagine.
  - rwallace 12y ago
    Not well enough to admin them blindfold, I couldn't!
- ap22213 12y ago
  I decided to do a total re-write of one of my applications over the weekend. 30k lines later, I'm wondering if this at all feels similar. When I'm alert, jacked up on caffeine, I can keep track of 100s of classes, 1000s of methods and member variables. When, I'm in the flow, I basically write the program in my head and let the fingers be my mouth.
  - cdelsolar 12y ago
    You rewrote an entire 30K line app in a weekend?? I have a side project that I really need to rewrite and I keep predicting it will take me weeks. Maybe I should actually give it a try.
    - ap22213 12y ago
      Don't get me wrong, some of it was refactoring. So, there was quite a lot of copy-paste / text replacements. A lot of moving things here and there. Splitting classes. Encapsulating stuff. Creating new libraries. Etc. There's a fair amount of new code... I'd say 10000 - 15000 lines, some of which I generated.
      - cdelsolar 12y ago
        Yeah - I actually need to add a lot of new functionality and change the language, so it might take me a while longer. Still pretty cool. Refactoring can be fun.
glomph 12y ago
Only tangentially related but hey: There is an interesting trick that was common for a time and still gets referenced by magicians where even the worst chess player can guarantee that they will win at least half of n chess games where n is any even number. They will also be able to appear to need very little time when they get to each table. The trick of course is just to play each player against another. The magician acts as a proxy and makes the moves of one player against another. Of course it takes a little practice at memorisation but magicians are often practised at mnemonics anyway.
- tbrake 12y ago
  Derren Brown pulled this off but with 9 boards, scoring 4W 3L 2D. The strongest players he played "against" each other and was able to beat the weakest (relatively speaking) player there. Quite impressive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0
  - zeroonetwothree 12y ago
    I doubt he actually had to "beat" anyone. Magicians don't like to do tricks that might not work :).
    - Osmium 12y ago
      > Magicians don't like to do tricks that might not work :) I actually don't think this is true. As I understand it, a given routine will have a number of high-risk tricks that may work, say, only 1-in-3 times. If they do work, they're highly effective, precisely because they're so implausible, and if they don't work you can just pretend it's a bluff and move onto plan B. It's all about effective showmanship and managing expectations. (Disclaimer: not a magician!)
      - gyom 12y ago
        That's kind of a cool approach. As long as you can "salvage" the trick, then nobody needs to know about the failed portion. One of my friends had a card trick that involved me selecting a card. Before starting the trick, he jokingly picked a card at random from the deck, and asked me if that was my card. He had 1/52 chances of being right, but it would have been an insane trick if it had worked. He guessed wrong (naturally), shrugged and went on with the actual trick as though the first attempt was just a joke, to be forgotten because an actual trick was about to take place.
nl 12y ago
There's a trick to beating good players in simil play. If a few players use the same openings and get themselves into similar positions it's very hard for the opposing player to keep track of the small differences that accrue.
- qznc 12y ago
  An interesting question: What is the best strategy for a group of mediocre chess players against a grandmaster in simul? Similar moves with small differences to encourage mistakes? Very different to make the mental switching harder? Very esoteric openings to avoid "played this a 1000 times" situations for the grandmaster?
  - nl 12y ago
    Similar moves. The GM's positional ability is almost certainly better than yours.
- nullmove 12y ago
  This is only applicable for blindfolded simuls where one needs to remember all board configurations. If the GM (or the one providing simul) can see the board then he wouldn't need to track differences, he can simply play according to each board. Only in blindfold does he need to remember each configuration with perfect clarity so tiny differences can get very confusing. Anyway, this reminds me of an anecdote I read long ago in a Tim Krabbe piece: "A grandmaster once played a 10-board blind simul somewhere. Knowing the ropes of blind simuls, he varied his games right from the start, maybe opening two with 1.e4, two with 1.d4, one with 1.b3, and so on. To his suprise, all of his opponents played 1...b6. On the second move, five of them played 2...Bb7, and the other five 2...Ba6. On the third, three of the five players who had played 2...Bb7 now played 3...Bc8 and the other two played 3...Ba6, while three of the five who had played 2...Ba6 now played 3...Bb7, and the other two 3...Bc8. On move 4, the grandmaster saw bishops everywhere. After move 5, he excused himself and went to the toilet where he was happy to find a window big enough to let him through."
  - nl 12y ago
rajacombinator 12y ago
People are really underappreciating the mutual badassery of the story you just shared.
xianshou 12y ago
Was this Addepar? I think I remember the match.
- dmourati 12y ago
  Yes.
carlob 12y ago
Was it this game? https://imgur.com/a/Moicv https://imgur.com/a/Moicv Maybe she wasn't ranked at the time, but a quick search revealed she played chess at an international level in her youth.
- dmourati 12y ago
  Yup.

petilon 12y ago

Imagine playing chess while blindfolded. Now imagine playing against 33 people simultaneously while being blindfolded and winning 29 games and losing none. This was done by American Grandmaster Timur Gareev, see: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12187/709 http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12187/709 To do this you have keep 33 chessboards in your mind simultaneously, and track the movement of 32 pieces on each board.

bluecalm 12y ago
The record is even higher at 46 boards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#Simultaneous_and_blindfold_records http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess#... Playing a game blindfolded seems like incredible feat if you are not serious/competitive chess player. Playing several sounds like magic. The thing is though that at certain level almost anybody can play decent blindfolded game, especially vs much weaker opponent. Playing several takes some practice but it's mainly connected with not being confused (anchoring positions to something so it's easy to switch). It's really not that much more taxing on the brain as chess players have tons of positions memorized anyway. I am talking about 2-3-4 games. 10 is already very impressive to me and things like 20+ is insane even for competitive chess player standards.
- petegrif 12y ago
  IT sounds like an incredible feat even if you are a serious/competitive chess player. And whilst it is indeed the case that 'at a certain level almost anybody can play a decent blindfolded game' that level is high.
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    I have a colleague at work who plays blindfold chess with his nine year old son on road trips. Well, it's not actually blindfold chess, neither of them are wearing blind folds - they just are able to play games without a board, which, if you think about it, is pretty amazing.
    - Tloewald 12y ago
      You just hope that the son doesn't make an especially brilliant move and cause a car accident.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - muyuu 12y ago
    I can play blindfolded and I'm nowhere near Kramnik. I've been around 17 hundreds in ELO when I played the most. I usually beat my beginner family members playing blindfolded against them. I don't think about individual pieces placed in a board but rather interactions and moves. Pieces are not located at random, you can remember where pieces are because you remember the plans, the threats and the moves that lead to a setup. If I had to remember seemingly random arrangements of pieces it would be a completely different story and much harder. Might help that I also played Shogi rather intensely and after being used to Shogi, the chess board feels very small.
hackuser 12y ago
On one hand that's amazing. On the other, if you're a sysadmin, could you remember the configurations of 33 servers? It's not hard to imagine.
- rwallace 12y ago
  Not well enough to admin them blindfold, I couldn't!
ap22213 12y ago
I decided to do a total re-write of one of my applications over the weekend. 30k lines later, I'm wondering if this at all feels similar. When I'm alert, jacked up on caffeine, I can keep track of 100s of classes, 1000s of methods and member variables. When, I'm in the flow, I basically write the program in my head and let the fingers be my mouth.
- cdelsolar 12y ago
  You rewrote an entire 30K line app in a weekend?? I have a side project that I really need to rewrite and I keep predicting it will take me weeks. Maybe I should actually give it a try.
  - ap22213 12y ago
    Don't get me wrong, some of it was refactoring. So, there was quite a lot of copy-paste / text replacements. A lot of moving things here and there. Splitting classes. Encapsulating stuff. Creating new libraries. Etc. There's a fair amount of new code... I'd say 10000 - 15000 lines, some of which I generated.
    - cdelsolar 12y ago
      Yeah - I actually need to add a lot of new functionality and change the language, so it might take me a while longer. Still pretty cool. Refactoring can be fun.

glomph 12y ago

Only tangentially related but hey: There is an interesting trick that was common for a time and still gets referenced by magicians where even the worst chess player can guarantee that they will win at least half of n chess games where n is any even number. They will also be able to appear to need very little time when they get to each table. The trick of course is just to play each player against another. The magician acts as a proxy and makes the moves of one player against another. Of course it takes a little practice at memorisation but magicians are often practised at mnemonics anyway.

tbrake 12y ago
Derren Brown pulled this off but with 9 boards, scoring 4W 3L 2D. The strongest players he played "against" each other and was able to beat the weakest (relatively speaking) player there. Quite impressive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0
- zeroonetwothree 12y ago
  I doubt he actually had to "beat" anyone. Magicians don't like to do tricks that might not work :).
  - Osmium 12y ago
    > Magicians don't like to do tricks that might not work :) I actually don't think this is true. As I understand it, a given routine will have a number of high-risk tricks that may work, say, only 1-in-3 times. If they do work, they're highly effective, precisely because they're so implausible, and if they don't work you can just pretend it's a bluff and move onto plan B. It's all about effective showmanship and managing expectations. (Disclaimer: not a magician!)
    - gyom 12y ago
      That's kind of a cool approach. As long as you can "salvage" the trick, then nobody needs to know about the failed portion. One of my friends had a card trick that involved me selecting a card. Before starting the trick, he jokingly picked a card at random from the deck, and asked me if that was my card. He had 1/52 chances of being right, but it would have been an insane trick if it had worked. He guessed wrong (naturally), shrugged and went on with the actual trick as though the first attempt was just a joke, to be forgotten because an actual trick was about to take place.

nl 12y ago

There's a trick to beating good players in simil play. If a few players use the same openings and get themselves into similar positions it's very hard for the opposing player to keep track of the small differences that accrue.

qznc 12y ago
An interesting question: What is the best strategy for a group of mediocre chess players against a grandmaster in simul? Similar moves with small differences to encourage mistakes? Very different to make the mental switching harder? Very esoteric openings to avoid "played this a 1000 times" situations for the grandmaster?
- nl 12y ago
  Similar moves. The GM's positional ability is almost certainly better than yours.
nullmove 12y ago
This is only applicable for blindfolded simuls where one needs to remember all board configurations. If the GM (or the one providing simul) can see the board then he wouldn't need to track differences, he can simply play according to each board. Only in blindfold does he need to remember each configuration with perfect clarity so tiny differences can get very confusing. Anyway, this reminds me of an anecdote I read long ago in a Tim Krabbe piece: "A grandmaster once played a 10-board blind simul somewhere. Knowing the ropes of blind simuls, he varied his games right from the start, maybe opening two with 1.e4, two with 1.d4, one with 1.b3, and so on. To his suprise, all of his opponents played 1...b6. On the second move, five of them played 2...Bb7, and the other five 2...Ba6. On the third, three of the five players who had played 2...Bb7 now played 3...Bc8 and the other two played 3...Ba6, while three of the five who had played 2...Ba6 now played 3...Bb7, and the other two 3...Bc8. On move 4, the grandmaster saw bishops everywhere. After move 5, he excused himself and went to the toilet where he was happy to find a window big enough to let him through."
- nl 12y ago

rajacombinator 12y ago

People are really underappreciating the mutual badassery of the story you just shared.

xianshou 12y ago

Was this Addepar? I think I remember the match.

dmourati 12y ago
Yes.

carlob 12y ago

Was it this game? https://imgur.com/a/Moicv https://imgur.com/a/Moicv Maybe she wasn't ranked at the time, but a quick search revealed she played chess at an international level in her youth.

dmourati 12y ago
Yup.