Day 1: I’ve been doing memory training for a week. What I plan to do for becoming a chess master is memorizing a lot of games. Chess is a game of memory and pattern recognition, I’m already decent at the game my peak rating on chess.com is 2054. It came all the way down to 1631 after lending it to a friend. I’m rated 1600 rapid fide
Now what are my goals?
Reaching 2500 rapid on chess.com, after that I will participate in fide rated tournaments to get my rating wayy up.
Beating my country’s memory masters their results are as follows: LMC official detailed test results:
Random Words test
First : Salem Najjar ( 33 words / 5 minutes ) Second :Reem Orabi ( 28 words / 5 minutes ) Third : Nisrine Nasr ( 28 words / 5 minutes )
First : Bilal Ghazal ( 11 digits at speed 1 digit / second ) Second : Bahaa Beainy ( 10 digits at speed 1 digit / second ) Third :Nisrine Nasr ( 08 digits at speed 1 digit / second)
memorizing the bible.
keep in mind all of this is VERY VERY long term which means these goals might take years. But I want to work on it anyway. I wanna put at least two hours a day into memory training until I reach my goals. No matter how long it takes.
But first before I do any speed cards. I need to be able to be fast at memorizing words so I could at least finish all the schoolwork I have so I can get more free time for memory I also memorize chess games on the side for pratice.
Here’s the system I made for chess: Every square has an image, and every letter has a meaning, for example from d1 to d8 are all the names of my dead family members whom I still remember. I put these images in my memory palace and they all sort of fall in place. I managed to memorize 3 chess games like this so far. All correlating to the smith-morra. A book that is 354 pages long who’s games I will memorize.
For words I just try to visualize the word and put it in the memory palace. Honestly I can’t find any better system that this. Sometimes the memory palace is absurdly long since each word has an image. Or sometimes I use multiple memory palaces for one chapter from a textbook. I didn’t start my memory training for today yet. But I will, Oh and what I do for maintaining my memory is this:
1st repetition: right after learning I check and read and recall everything twice
2nd repetition:20 minutes after repeating.
3rd:6-8 hours
4th:after 24 hours from the third
5th:after a week
6th:after 2-3 months
I understand this can be exhausting but I have to this to ensure everything is set in stone long term. I will work on myself today and then post the results. For now I only will do words and chess games
Very ambitious goals. I have been interested in learning chess games as well. I have played chess for fun, but I think memorizing some games would be cool. As far as memorizing 10,000 CodeForces coding problems, again, very cool concept. I think this is doable, and both challenges will help with your pattern recognition. I would like to know how this goes.
I have a quick question. Your system of chess involves a memory palace. Are you using the same palace for each game? If so, what is your technique to not get the games mixed up since you are using a palace to store them all? Will you be creating new palaces for more games in the future?
I’ve been interested lately in committing the Psalms and Proverbs (in English: I have no plans currently to learn Biblical Hebrew) to memory, though nothing concrete as of yet. I think it would be nice to be able to review those as I go about my day
every game has a memory palace. after a game has been repeated 5 times, which is what I do for maintenance, I forget about it and put another game using the memory palace. once you’ve remembered it for a week it should be pretty solid in your memory . today as I reviewed my memory palace game the order was very very wrong in the recall but I fixed it after that. forgetting happens and I use reminders on my phone so I could review the games at a specific date.
Day 1 training: yesterday I couldn’t do much, I stayed for 2 hours on art of memory trying to search for a memory journal of someone who actually achieved their goals from scratch or went from novice to master so I could learn from them. Sadly I didn’t really find anything , there was this famous interesting post called unstupiding myself. It has over 500 replies. I didn’t really find much. I did read on some interesting stuff. there was someone who used a letter system to memorize everything word for word like
he’d give an image to every two consecutive letters. like aa has an image . bb has an image etc… I’m guessing that would be 676 images which I think is too much.
after that I didn’t have much time so I decided to go with my usual training. I memorized a chess game and a few cosine and sinus identities. the chess game wasn’t even a game it was an opening so I memorized it pretty quickly it took me about 20 minutes to memorize and recall. after that I waited another 20 minutes then I reviewed it and recalled it again. After that the cosine identities took like 30 minutes. It gave me a headache tbh. this happens everytime I do mnemonics I just have this huge headache at the end
it was like this:1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O a6 8. Qe2 Nf6 9. Rd1 Qc7 10. Bf4 Be7 11. Rac1 O-O 12. Bb3. I have the opening solidly memorized in my long term so the beginning moves until Nxc3 is the smith morra accepted. the memory palace I chose was my house’s street. Nc6 Nf3 would be Yvan. this move order happens a lot so I chose him as the image for Nc6 Nf3. it always happens in italian ruy lopez…Scotch opening there many many openings where Nc6 Nf3 happens so an image for it would be useful. after that I imagined my dead dog (d6) walking with a french terrorist priest (Bishopc4 e6 ) e6 is for the french defense. then I saw a purple graffity of big eyes. there was a girl in my class back in school( I’m a second year at uni doing computer science) that was very interesting she would always draw eyes in class. whenever 0-0 pops up it reminds of her.
and then a6 which is a grandma walking with my best friend (Qe2). I have a memory of my sick grandma in Russia not being able to walk so someone had to help her up for her daily needs . shower etc… so this picture kinda stuck. and then c7(an athlete gregg plitt) here I didn’t memorize Queen but it sort of stuck in my memory that it was queen sure not very efficient but it worked for me, he was jogging with my dead mother (QueenD1) before her death she used to jog a bit so this picture is sort of an old memory, well without the athlete. an the we got to a gym next to my house. I saw a friend who’s into computers and fitness(f4) here I also assumed it was bishop f4 even though I only memorize squares. he used to play an instrument it was like a bong. so bongcloud opening which is e7 square. (Be7 keep in mind I only memorize the square not the piece . the piece either comes by assumption or I just somehow memorized it, it always sticks though, I think this comes from playing chess for a few years) c1 is the image of bobby fischer who used to also do lots of fitness. it sort of makes sense in my head that those 2 people are walking together. then 0-0 the same girl and picture on the gym. and we’re almost inside the gym, met a friend called joy there, which is b3. that’s the game and how I memorized it . I won’t be doing this every single time, maybe sometimes cuz writing about it makes me remember it better. but this is a good reference for how I memorize things.
Day 2 training: I spent a lot of time today just researching and looking at how to memorize word for word, I think it’s known as verbatism. Anyway I memorized a chess game and won a few rated games. I’m 1650 rated now , I memorized another chess game and got to page 22/360 in my book. I also finished all the academic memorisation I have for now. tommorow I’ll get to exercice my memory for real. I also found a good way to memorize text is to just remember the first letter of each word after reading it a couple a times and you’ll get the hang of it. I plan to mix this with my memory palace and see what happens. I’m hoping for better results sooner or later
Day 3 training: after a week and 3 days or so of training and researching doing memory palaces has gotten a lot easier. I feel like I’m starting, and ONLY starting to unlock these superhuman like capabilities that these memory masters have. I’m not even close but I feel like I’m putting my foot in the door since things have gotten so easy to memorize. I memorized 50 words and a chess game for a total of 20 minutes today. Sure it took a lot of research without much fruit but I’m getting there. Before memorizing all that would take at least an hour. And I’m rated 1673 rapid now, Slow but very good progress. I think tommorow I could start training for real. High volume training to get a bit more mastery and so I could get the headaches back. For me each time I have a headache means that I worked hard. and I wanna work hard everyday. Hoping to get even better soon
Day 4 training: I ran into a huge setback. today I memorized like 3 games. as I said I wanna up the volume. I remember the games I did today and yesterday. But I literally can’t remember any of the games I memorized before. I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING. NOTHING , I could probably memorize them faster next time. But this revealed a huge problem in my system. it turns out recalling things with repetition like this :
1st repetition: right after learning I check and read and recall everything twice
2nd repetition:20 minutes after repeating.
3rd:6-8 hours
4th:after 24 hours from the third
5th:after a week
6th:after 2-3 month
doesn’t work, THIS DOESN’T WORK. I’m gonna start thinking and researching ways to manage large sums of information.
If anyone has any article or something to help please send. I hope I’ll find a solution for this
Hi. I dont understand how you memorize chess. You put individual plays images in one locus of the palace? Or more?or how? It would be interesting. I cant use it in chess.
every square has a predetermined image. all the d squares have the image of my dead family members for example so:
d1-mother
d2-grandpa
d3-brother
d4-pet goldfish
d5-pet dog
d6- cousin
d7-step brother
d8-uncle
E would for example be for all your exes.
like That I just memorize squares and I let the pieces care for themselves. when you’ve played for a while it just takes the squares of a game to remember everything
Day 5: because of this problem I ran into with long term memory I just sat there all day asking myself questions like what is it to memorize? How does all this work? I get it that images are easier to memorize for the brain. But why are there things I remember so vividly but others I just can’t? I think there’s always some emotional link to them. Sometimes it’s just a scene with nothing to tell. most of the time there’s more to it but not much to go off of. I couldn’t come up with much so I started hitting the books to see what I could find, I’m gonna start with the books on art of memory first one is american mnemotechny.
Hi. I think its not only an emotional matter. There are a lot of things. Like the familiarity. Its not the same a house you know that a house you dont know. And maybe are very similar. Other is the order. Its not the same o thing that a thing in some order. That way we can remember a movie in detail. Is a combinación of a lot of things in order. Besides is the encoding. You could remember a Image with some kind of encoding a others not.
Day 6: I spent a lot of time practicing the mnemotechny alphabet It took me like 4-5 hours of practice till I got a headache and slept for like 2 hours. I woke up and I practiced some more and now I’m done with all the examples and more examples of my own. It still doesn’t feel natural to me yet. Like the sound K is the number 7 and B and p are the number 9 etc… At first it’s difficult and time consuming to get used to. But everything is hard at first. I have a feeling if I keep reading books i’ll get the answers to my questions. I’m still going to continue for like 3 hours and hopefully I can do more like 4 or 5 more. I will improve and Someday I’ll know how it feels to be able to memorize like dominic o brian. edit: I’m back after 2 hours. I continued with the alphabet, finished it then proceeded to memorize 19 of the major events in ancient history. that was insanely hard it took me like an hour to memorize and recall and my head really hurts I think that’s really good
day 8:for today I memorized the rest of the events. I think they were 35 historic events and their dates in total, I didn’t count right but somewhere in that range. But there are still hundreds of events to memorize in this book and honestly I don’t really get the point. what I want is a technique, I don’t want to just sit there and memorize their phrases all the time. Which I need a memorize palace to memorize by the way sure they have a good way to memorize dates for your average student but that’s all there is to it , I’m a computer science student so I have 0 need to memorize dates. I’m gonna continue reading and check if there are any other techniques I can use for verbatism or something.
Okay so I stopped reading the american mnemonics book and started reading a book by ron white called memory improvement. It says the best way I could retain my images is to make them as vivid as possible. The book is very good it’s 240ish pages i’m at page 60. I hope i’ll improve lots with this
Hi I have talked to ron White on YouTube. Seems a great person. I like he speaks slowly so I can understand what he says. American accent is difficult for me. He says he uses palaces for all. That dont like the other methods. I like link method and peg systems a lot. Palace I dont know how to use it well. Only if there are few items and combined with other methods. I would like to read a rons book. He explains easy. Nelson dellis so he had a channel but he soeaks too fast and dont understand him well.
day 9: well the conclusion I got after finishing the book is that my images weren’t vivid enough. I will do this by trying more to actually “see” the image by recalling a lot more details. that seems to work for me. I will use it for my chess games. Right now I don’t care about speed , just long term memory . Later on i’ll see what I can do to make it a lot quicker for now I’m just gonna memorize like normal. I’m gonna take a break and do so and update with my results. And as for the games I forgot. I’ll just keep them forgotten since I understand the main ideas but can’t recall the games themselves. I memorized 4 games today and I have a decent grasp of the difference between them and how they work in head, I tried to vividly see the images. It was a bit slower but it worked much better