# Beginner, taking first steps \[chess, pi, practice routines\] **URL:** \ **Category:** General Memory Chat\ **Tags:** chess, pi, major-system\ **Created:** [August 8, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385 "2025-08-08T14:15:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/a9a28c/32.png) [@weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/weezingxd)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/1 "2025-08-08T14:15:08Z")
Hello, i am 25 and taking my first foray into the world of memory learning. I love chess and i wondered if this technique would help me better memorize grandmaster games, anyways thats for the future. I am fascinated by how people can remember strings of random numbers or a deck of cards under 30 seconds. It is these drills that i want to work my way towards, i have read the free ebook, i just wanted to ask if the Major System was the way to go as to be the first thing to be learnt? I saw a mike boyd video in the past where he learns the first 100 digits of PI using this. I have scoured this forum enough to know that different techniques work for different people and i should commit to one before finding a new shiny toy. I plan on to stick by this advice. So what else can i learn after the digits of PI? Got any party tricks? Anywhere to look into more goal based practice routines? Thank you xx Much love \<3 ---
**Author:** ![turducken](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/turducken/32/22507_2.png) [@turducken](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/turducken)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 3:01pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/2 "2025-08-08T15:01:49Z")
Welcome to the forum, it’s always great to have new people here! The major system is generally a good place to start, since you’ll very often get an opportunity to memorise different numbers - from recipes to the news. I work an accounting gig while in law school, so I do that a lot. I think the names and faces category is probably also one of the higher-utility things discussed on this forum, at least for someone like me, who is otherwise terrrible at names (and worse at faces!). ---
**Author:** ![weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/a9a28c/32.png) [@weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/weezingxd)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 3:13pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/3 "2025-08-08T15:13:33Z")
Thank you! i found out about memory league and got to level 8 by memorizing 18 images in 60 seconds. This is such a friendly community i hope to stick around everyday. So ill get right on with Major system and therefore the digits of Pi then for practice 😄. I was wondering if there are any tangible drills to practice number system with? like can i use that for the numbers category in Memory League i wonder. ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 11:40pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/4 "2025-08-08T23:40:11Z")
Arguably the most important technique to learn and practice is the memory palace (aka method of loci, journey method, spacial memory, etc.) it is the basis of pretty much every tried and tested memory system. Memorizing a series of numbers? Make them into scenes set across a series of memory palace landmarks. Memorizing random words? Turn them into imagery and place them in a palace. Cards? Put them in a palace. Shopping lists? History? Vocabulary? Anatomy? Chemistry? Organize them and store them in palaces. If you get comfortable with using and building and expanding palaces, you will have an amazing foundation to build other techniques and systems on. As for the first “system” to try, if you learn Major (highly highly recommended!) there are a lot of applications, both fun and useful. Account numbers, pins, credit cards numbers, phone numbers, address numbers, anything number based can be converted to imagery and memorized easily. A 2-digit number system via major can also be used to easily map onto playing cards as well, so you can almost kill two birds with one stone by learning that. Actually, 3 birds because… It can also be used to memorize binary digits. One of my favorite things to do with that is to rip through a deck of cards and use binary to memorize the red/black order of the deck in like 20 seconds or less, however quick I can thumb through all the cards. This can be really impressive and is a lot quicker to show somebody than trying to do a complete deck reconstruction. Happy to elaborate on any of these if you want more info! ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/5 "2025-08-08T23:59:23Z")
> [@weezingxd](#): > > I was wondering if there are any tangible drills to practice number system with? Flashcards are king. Lots of apps that let you create flashcards. Anki is probably the most widely used amongst memory folks. It can be kind of complicated at first because there are TONS of customization options, but once you get the hang of it, its amazing. Initially you want to get as fluent as possible with the sounds that are associated with each single digit. Create a flashcard for each number and have the answer as the sounds they make. Better yet, come up with a person and/or and object, and possibly an action that uses just the consonant sound for each number. A couple ideas: 0 = S/Z sound The person could be Saw (horror movie character) or the wizard of oZ or oZZy osbourne. The object could be a Saw. The action could be “to Saw” 5 = L sound Person - Leia Object - Lei Action - Lay on 9 = P/B sound Person - Poe or Bowie Object - a Pie or a Bow Action - Pee on or Bow to Etc… Then use your flashcard app (or physical card if you want to go analog to start) and drill until you can see the number and reflexively read it as its sound and visualize its associated person or action or object. (If you build a person, action, and object for each number you will need to build 30 flashcards. One for each association. You should try to learn them as independent direct associations to the number. So like “when 0 is a person it’s oZZy” or “when 0 is an action it’s Sawing” or “when 0 is a object it’s a Saw.” This will reinforce the sound association and set you up for success when it comes to actually using the system to memorize quickly.) Then you can work on building scenes out of random 3 digit sequences using the person for the first number, the action for the second, and the object for the third. So if you see 059 you’d imagine Ozzy (0) Laying (5) on a Pie (9). 950 would be Poe Lying on a Saw 509 would be Leia Sawing a Pie. This is how a “PAO” system via the Major System works. Turn numbers into sounds, use sounds to pre-define words for those numbers, the words should trigger mental imagery which can be combined into a scene that encodes those digits. When you remember the scene you translate each element (the person and the action and the object) back into their numbers and there you have it. After a little bit you’l likely realize the limitations of just having a single-digit translation system and you’ll want to move up to a 2-digit system. This requires more work, you’ll need to find 300 associations that fit (a person and an action and an object for all 100 two-digit numbers), but your efficiency will really start taking off from there. I used a 2-digit system combined with a memory palace to memorize over 4000 digits of pi. World records have been achieved using this technique. It is incredibly powerful. More on that once you get comfortable and quick with translation for the single digits! ---
**Author:** ![weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/a9a28c/32.png) [@weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/weezingxd)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 6:23am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/6 "2025-08-09T06:23:17Z")
![Screenshot 2025-08-09 114635](https://forum.artofmemory.com/uploads/default/original/3X/1/c/1c38a810a0080317ad57a41734e6959896f015d4.png) The concept of memory palaces seem too difficult for me as a beginner. I will get to it but i have another question. I tried my hand at memory league and this is what i can do without any of the memory techniques (i then moved on to other games). Here when i am memorizing an 18 or even a 20 digit number i can chunk it into blocks and reproduce it quite fast. Now if i were to encode these into words, for example 08 being SaFe, wouldnt it take much much longer? because then i have to decode them as well. I do realize that chunking would not work on bigger numbers but this entire process of encoding-decoding seems like a challenge when you are beginning. Now say in the example the above digits are like 08 31 50, would i be reading them as individual words? SaFe MaD LeSS? ---
**Author:** ![weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/a9a28c/32.png) [@weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/weezingxd)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 6:35am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/7 "2025-08-09T06:35:26Z")
From what i gather here (which is a goldmine btw) you are talking about integrating Major system into a PAO which is what i was planning on doing. But shouldnt i begin with two digits itself? Create a Major System word for 00-99, this way might be easier to remember, because i already read digits in pairs of two or three, the ultimate goal would be a PAO system of three digits because it compresses a lot faster, what i wanted to know was is there any benefit of associating PAO to 00-99 or does Major System words just do it fine enough? What i mean is, say i have ToNe for 12 and NoTe for 21 (they dont necessarily need to be this similar it could be two different words, like DaNe and NaTe) but this way i have 100 associations and i can recall any digit in pairs. How does adding PAO over it help me? Sorry for the plethora of questions ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/8 "2025-08-09T15:19:25Z")
> [@weezingxd](#): > > The concept of memory palaces seem too difficult for me as a beginner. It is the foundation of nearly every proven technique and pretty much the key to next level success with them. Once you understand it, it is actually the simplest technique to apply and perfect for beginners! At its core, the memory palace technique is just taking a familiar location, imagining a logical way to navigate through it, and noticing some sequential landmarks along that path. It takes advantage of most human’s natural ability of spatial awareness and ability to easily recall places in order to use those landmarks to trigger recall of information that you imagine is associated with that place. It is much simpler in practice than you may realize. Lets say you want to use your home as a memory palace. Your first four landmarks may be your parking space, the stairs, a welcome mat, and your front door. You can use that sequence of effortlessly remembered landmarks to organize and anchor mnemonic scenes so that you can recall numbers or playing cards, or words, or other images or whatever you want in order. If you have a 2-digit PAO that lets you encode 6 digits per scene, you can store a series of 24 digits in order across those four simple landmarks. Without a sequential anchoring technique like the memory palace, you will be unable to hold onto longer strings of data for recall later. You may do ok short term with 15 or 20 digits or images, but if you want to try for 80 digits in a minute or a full deck of cards, its extremely unlikely that it will be possible without it. I was able to memorize 4000 digits of pi because I ordered the scenes along a giant memory palace route. It was easy to navigate to each landmark in order and at each one I just had to rememeber what took place there and decode it. Don’t overlook or wait on getting comfortable with memory palaces! > [@weezingxd](#): > > Now if i were to encode these into words, for example 08 being SaFe, wouldnt it take much much longer? because then i have to decode them as well. I do realize that chunking would not work on bigger numbers but this entire process of encoding-decoding seems like a challenge when you are beginning. Yes and no. It can feel slower when you are beginning, but thats temporary. Learning a number or card system is just like learning a new language, except there are only a 10 “letters” and their sounds to learn and just a couple hundred words for the full vocabulary. At first you’ll have to actively think about and translate like 08 to S - F to SaFe. At some point when you learned to read, things clicked and you no longer had to sound out combinations of letters to be able to visualize words. Now you see the word “anchor” and you likely can reflexively and effortlessly imagine a big metal boat anchor. You no longer have to consider each letter and do all of that mental conversion “ah nnn kuh oor” you just read “anchor” and picture an anchor. The same thing happens when you learn to read numbers with major. If you determine a word or a set of words (like in a PAO) that will be associated with each number, then with some practice you’ll get to a point where 91 is just reflexively recognize as PeTe or a PoT or PeTTing. At that point it becomes almost trivial to read a 6 digit chunks as a sentence describing a scene and by setting scenes at memory palace locations you can encode digits as fast as you can read them with strong recall no matter the total. For number and card systems, there is no real shortcut to learning them. You have to put in the time and drill the associations so that they are fluent. It is a short term, one-time, cost of entry that once paid will reward you huge going forward. > [@weezingxd](#): > > Now say in the example the above digits are like 08 31 50, would i be reading them as individual words? SaFe MaD LeSS? Yes. If you develop a PAO list, you would be reading them with a sentence structure. SoPHia MeeTing LiCe. An absurd but “logical” scene is created for you which is usually very memorable. Sophia Loren is hesitantly trying to shake hands with a huge roiling pile of head lice. If you have that scene happen in your parking space, you can quickly and easily recall it as the first set of numbers in your series. Next 6 digits, 08 52 73, SoPHia is back, this time she’s casually and seductively LeaNing on a giant CoMb. This is happening on your front stairs. Your last six digits were 90 60 87, gary BuSey CHaSing a VaC around your welcome mat. So you can maybe see how by using a simple memory palace you can walk up to your house and notice three absurd scenes that represent those 18 digits. Once you’re fluent with your pre-defined list, seeing 083150, 085273, 906087 is just like reading three simple sentences. By formatting them in PAO format and using the memory palace, your recall is boosted like crazy and you can expand to dozens and dozens or hundreds of digits. > [@weezingxd](#): > > is there any benefit of associating PAO to 00-99 or does Major System words just do it fine enough? What i mean is, say i have ToNe for 12 and NoTe for 21 (they dont necessarily need to be this similar it could be two different words, like DaNe and NaTe) but this way i have 100 associations and i can recall any digit in pairs. How does adding PAO over it help me? The benefit of PAO is providing a consistent structure to the scenes that you imagine. For some people this can be extremely helpful and allow for incredible speed in memorizing because it basically turns numbers into sentences that can be visualized really easily and quickly. No extra thought is needed about how the elements interact, the structure does that for you. If you want to just create a single association for each two-digit number, this can work just fine too. You will just need to “manually” create some kind of scene from them and ensure that you keep the correct order. The downside here can be that you will encounter repeat elements more often which can sometimes be confusing when you go to recall them. You will also need to consider how you can make those elements interact. If you combine two elements per scene, you’ll need more total scenes to encode the same number of digits. 60 digits need 30 scenes this way, as opposed to just 20 scenes with a PAO structure. If you decide to go with just a single association setup, I’d strongly recommend making sure all of your words are nouns. You want to be able to imagine scenes easily with tangible subjects and interactions. So something more abstract like ToNe or MaD or LeSS would be (in my view) much more difficult to visualize than ToNy (the frosted flakes tiger) or a messy glob of MuD or a writhing pile of head LiCe. ---
**Author:** ![weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/a9a28c/32.png) [@weezingxd](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/weezingxd)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/9 "2025-08-10T18:55:41Z")
I spent a whole day ruminating and formulating, thank you to your wonderful suggestions. I have decided to create a PAO list based on the major system for 00-99 and from 0-9 so 110? in total. It will be a bit of an hybird because sometimes ill be substituting famous sportsmen for their jersey numbers (only those that i am intimately familiar with, i am hoping not to exceed more than 12-15). Then out of these 300 or so associations i will be creating ill go get drilling in Anki. I am always open to more suggestions! However because i feel 300 (particularly vague things like action) may be too much in the beginning, what i will do is gradually include them and begin with just the persons of 00-99? Although i am not sure. Thank you very much for reading! ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 7:09pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/10 "2025-08-10T19:09:38Z")
> [@weezingxd](#): > > It will be a bit of an hybird because sometimes ill be substituting famous sportsmen for their jersey numbers (only those that i am intimately familiar with, i am hoping not to exceed more than 12-15). I’d advise against this. Mixing systems and exceptions can be a huge flow killer, especially when you are basing your system on sound. You’ll be focused on sounding out the numbers and trust me you’ll blank on those jersey numbers. I had 23 as Michael Jordan at first but every time 23 would come up in the middle of my practicing i’d sit there and stare at it and try to sound it out N-M, Nuh-Muh, nnnnm mmmm… It wouldnt even register that it was an exception. Switched it to gNoMe like an animated garden gnome and its one of my best images. Same thing later on when I did my first 3-digit build. I tried to use James Bond as 007, but the whole thing was based on Major, so I got to 007 amd would try to read it as S-S-K and would blank. Realized how this was affecting learning and practice and switched 007 to SiSKo from Star Trek DS9. Never had an issue with it since. There are rare cases of people doing ok with hybrid mixed systems, but usually consistency is key. If you don’t have to actively pay attention to when exceptions might occur, you can much more quickly get to “autopilot” reflexive fluency and that extra focus can be used to craft memorable scene interactions. You should try to make everything that is in your control be consistent. Check out this post from a little while back for some more thoughts on starting out with Major. Even though the response was to a question about a 3-digit major list, most if not all points would apply to you when structuring your 2-digit list: > [@Advice for Creating a 000-999 system](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/advice-for-creating-a-000-999-system/103135/3): > > If you plan on using the major system to structure your list (highly recommended), I can offer some advice. (Some of this may be applicable to other systems as well.) Here’s my top 10 (in no particular order)… 1. Don’t worry about limiting yourself to strictly 3-consonant single words. By this, I mean you can include extra sounds at the end of words or phrases and only “translate” the first three. Examples: 913 (sounds = P/B - T/D - M), you could read this as “BaT Man,” even though this is t… For your last point here: > [@weezingxd](#): > > because i feel 300 (particularly vague things like action) may be too much in the beginning, what i will do is gradually include them and begin with just the persons of 00-99? Try to get people and actions mapped to the major sounds. Forget actions for now (you may find you don’t even want to bother with them. PO can be great as is!) ---
**Author:** ![Hypersonic](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3e96dc/32.png) [@Hypersonic](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Hypersonic)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/11 "2025-08-11T21:47:58Z")
How do you handle memory palace OCD? I can’t get over the fact that some of my rooms are distorted in some way and I feel like I have to straighten them out. The problem is that the straightened room is not the first image that I see, so I have to keep straightening them every time I view them. ---
**Author:** ![TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/thehumantim/32/17301_2.png) [@TheHumanTim](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/TheHumanTim)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 10:08pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/beginner-taking-first-steps-chess-pi-practice-routines/104385/12 "2025-08-11T22:08:47Z")
Not sure what to tell you on that… There is no rule that memory palaces have to be true one-to-one replicas of an actual space. Its ok if things are different or rearranged. The surroundings and the path is less important than the actual things you’re using as your landmarks/loci. And even they don’t have to be perfectly clear and consistent. You may manipulate or imagine interactions with or at the a locus differently depending on what you’re storing, especially if you use the same palace multiple times like in event training. The important thing is just knowing the sequence of the loci. Ideally the other details of the in between stuff becomes irrelevant and its less about the actual travel and more about just isolating those locations. It can be tricky if you use a palace that you actually frequent often and there is a difference in how you’ve imagined it and plotted it out and then how you experience it in reality. In those cases you have a choice of either updating the palace or retaining your version as a “snapshot in time” or as an “artist’s interpretation” of the space. Maybe thinking of it that way can help get you over the need for updating and correcting Don’t know if that’s exactly what you were asking but hope it helps?