Solution of Problem 1058. Key move—Kt-Q B 5

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 38

Solution of Problem 1058. Key move— Kt-Q B 5

Mnemonic Chess. (Translated from the French of M. Alfred Binet.) The real difficulty begins when any two games get into similar positions. I do not know if it would be possible to play unseeing eight Sicilian openings for instance. As a game of chess has for a strong player as definite a meaning as a page of a novel or of poetry, one can understand now there are many players who find a pleasure jn learning by heart celebrated games and thowing them right and left as proofs of .their learning. This little effort ia as easy as learaiog to recite a piece of poetry. Many erudite players are able to let up on the board at least a dozen celebrated games. If they can then remember games played by others, it follows as a matter of course that they will still better remember games played by themsehea. It is indisputable ihat chesbplayeis of good strength do recall a long time afterwards both s.en aud unseen games played by themselves. Such games present remarkable or curious combinations. When M. Preti the elder desired to publish Mirpfyy's games he collected a certain EUtnber and submitted them to the author. He replied, " You have not got such and such games which I played against such and such opponents Write down, I will dictate them to you," and without the board he dictated eight games played jeight months previous to the date of the interview. ?t would be pretty difficult fur an unseeing pjayei 1 -to tell exactly how much was stored in his memory. A player who has played a game having any points about it often shows it on the board to his friends, and so may refresh his memory ; but it may be stated generally that every; series of moves presenting points of interest remains long fixed in the Blind. And while on this subject I may be permitted to institute a brief comparison between chessplayers, and calculating prodigis such as M. Mandi, whose curious demonstrations I have studied in this journal. I have shown how this young calculator has been led to adopt the singular profession which consists of retaining every day more Ihan 200 different numbers. It is the daily ration of his memory, and now for 10 years his memory has undergone without failing this daily impulse. Has he maintained it day by day since he was born? Assuredly, nearly a million. And how many of these have remained fixed ? I asked him this question one day offhand, with a view to a conference on the physiology of memory which M, Charcot had. asked me to arrange at the

Salpetriere. M. Mandi on that occasion could hardly recite more than 300 numbers, the result of the previous day and the day before— all the rest had vanished. Ido not doubt that if ho hnd had notice beforehand he could have recalled a greater number. At all times his memory is of a transitory character, like that of the scholar who crams to pass an examination, and that passed forgets all he has learned ; or of the advocate who assimilates quickly technical details for the conduct of a case, and remembers none of them after the case is over. The ephemeral nature of such remembrances would appear to arise from -the fact that they affect merely the simple sensations. It is really so with M. Mandi. The numbers he trie 3to retain have a meaning devoid of interest. They are nothing more than sensations for the ear, associated without reason. They^ represent chaos — the incomprehensible— and this is the reason they leave no fixed impression. From the same cause the pupil who learns quickly, quickly forgets, because he learns without understanding and does not try to store in his memory anything beyond the sound of the words and not their meaning. The chessplayer employs a different kind of memory— less quick, perhaps, but more lasting. It is not merely tho memory of sensations, but that of ideas.