I want to memorize all 3490 chess openings in the Lichess opening database.
I will be completely thrilled if I can learn 100.
I expect to learn no more than 10.
A chess opening is a sequence of moves played at the beginning of the game. They each have names - for the longer ones - often some kind of “plan” associated with them.
In almost all cases, there’s overlap between them. For example, after e4 c5 is the “Sicilian Defense” and then from there there’s e4 c5 Bc4 which is the “Sicilian Defense: Bowdler Attack”
So far I am using Anki without implementing any memory techniques.
I wonder if there’s a mapping to the major system.
Each piece is a person with a name… Not sure where to go from there.
Also would love to find a method of memorization that involves the relationship between pieces and other squares. Like pawn to e4 controls d5 and f5 could be…
That said…I’m going to encourage you to be open to experimenting with maybe several different approaches as you try to memorize, say, three or four openings. Because I’m guessing you’re not wanting this knowledge to be set up like an encyclopedia or a long list in your mind; I’m guessing you’d like to see a move and immediately be able to sift through the established responses to that move. Or make your own opening move and know how to respond to your opponent’s counter. I think that’s going to make a difference in how you decide to store your information.
And then I think it may help to establish a cut-off point for the moves. Unless you’re wanting to memorize entire games, having a cut-off (e.g., only the first five moves) will make things more manageable. I’m only a casual chess player, though; it’s possible that a specific strategy only comes to light after 6 or 8 (or whatever) moves. If that’s the case, then I guess you would need to memorize whatever number of moves would be required to identify that strategy.
Might it help to create separate memory palaces for each of the pieces that could conceivably open a game? That way you can immediately go to the relevant palace and find the related pieces/moves that follow.
Personally, I wouldn’t base the spaces in these palaces on an actual representation of a chessboard. I would find that incredibly confusing when moving from palace to palace. Instead, I think it might help to create something like a PAO system that places a specific person at each of the 64 squares. That way, all of the pieces (which could also have specific people associated with them…or not) would be able to interact with identifiable characters as they move about the board, rather than just going to “E7” or whatever. But I’m also not well-versed in chess terminology; if the actual board position makes immediate sense to you, then by all means use that .
I would actually like to be able to memorize chess games. Many professional players remember the moves of previous games they played as well as famous games.
I’m rethinking all of this since you posed that question.
There is memorizing a position and memorizing the sequence of moves that lead up to that position.
Different sequences of moves can lead to the same position (just imagine the kings pawns moving one step at a time towards each other).
I think what I want to be able to do is memorize positions and facts about them
na mes of openings that reach them, famous games that reached them, plans, and - most important to my state goal - what the adjacent openings are.
The more I think about, the less I want to memorize the sequence of moves and the more I want to memorize the positions themselves. A fact of a position is what other positions you can go to from there.
I think a good place to start is pawn structures. I think finding a way to encode them would be a good first step.
Here are some basic aspects of a pawn structure (from Wikipedia)
Backward pawn – pawn that is not supported by other pawns and cannot advance.
Connected pawns – pawns of the same color on adjacent files so that they can protect each other.
Doubled pawns – two pawns of the same color on the same file, so that one blocks the other.
Passed pawn – pawn that can advance to its eighth rank without being blocked by an opposing pawn and without the possibility of being captured by a pawn on an adjacent file.
Pawn Island - A group of pawns of one color on consecutive files with no other pawns of the same color on an adjacent file.
Single Connected Pawns: A pawn is supported only by one other pawn
Double Connected Pawns: A pawn is supported by two other pawns
Body guard pawns: Two pawns with a space between them on the same rank.
Twins: Two pawns next to each other on the same rank
Triplets: Three pawns next to each other on the same rank
Quads: Four pawns next to each other on the same rank
This is pretty much just brainstorming at this point.
Honestly, maybe I just scared to start. If I’m being honest, I talk a big talk, but it’s been a couple years since I last did recreational memorization. I’m kinda anxious.
It’s great that you realize that. You know I’m still afraid of getting needles. Since it’s not a full on phobia, I managed to agree to get my tetanus booster. Most of it’s just accepting / agreeing with the little fear arguments and having other points to make.
“I hate the feel of needles!” Yep, absolutely. I can handle that for ten seconds though, right?
“It’s going to hurt for days!” Yeah probably. (it did) That’s going to suck, but at this point my life days are short and that kind of pain is just annoying.
“It could touch bone or rip a blood vessel!” Gross. Possible, but very unlikely. I just need to focus on staying still to keep the chances near zero.
“The chances of getting tetanus is extremely low, you don’t live in the country.” Well sure, but I do like to garden, and don’t want that fear in the back of my head.
… You get the point; if you can talk yourself through it and accept the outcomes you’re worried about, you can do the thing.
I’m also thinking of doing something similar, not all of them but have a good set of memorized openings.
My plan so far is to use something similar to the PAO system.
Each piece has its own name (Person) and just to make it simpler to remember I associate it to its notation so for example Bishop (B) => Batman
Then for the action we have A-H, so each letter is associated with an action that starts with that letter.
As for the Object, it’s 1-8. My initial set of 1-100 pegs is not specifically an object (some are characters, objects, actions…). So, instead I assigned an object to each number 1-8 that uses the major system to make it easier to recall.
I don’t use a way to identify if the piece is W/B since the order is always W moves, B follows.
But this is what I’m experimenting with, from there I’m more inclined to linking the movements instead of using a memory palace, but that could change.
I’m new to the chess world, but just showing my approach
One issue I have with memory palaces is that I don’t want to exist in this physical world. The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to is kind of a drag. Thinking about the world around me is uncompelling and not a place I want to go to when my eyes are closed.
I know that sounds like emo edge lord stuff, but it is what it is. Emo edge lord midlife stuff.
Okay, so I’ve started developing the PAO system for the chessboard. I’m differentiating black and white so it can generalize to chessboard memorization.
I’m a big fan of Gravity Falls so I’m going to use those characters. I certainly have an easier time imagining them clearly than the people I know!
Capital is white, lowercase is black (convention taken from FEN)
R - Blubs
N - Agent Powers
B - Fids
Q - Ford
K - Stan
B - Soos
N - Agent Trigger
R - Durland
r - Grenda
n - Gabe
b - Mermando
q - Mabel
k - Dipper
b - Wendy
n - Norman
r - Candy
To truly get a full chess position, one also needs to keep track of an available en passant square and whose turn it is at minimum. Half move number is important for some circumstances as well. So is last capture/check I believe, and the last several moves in the case of detecting three fold repetition. I’ll worry about these later.
Fun bestieboots fact time! I’m partially face blind! I often don’t know who is who in shows and movies and only learn names if I put a ton of work into it and quiz myself.
