Mnemonic Chess.

Otago Witness, Issue 2083, 25 January 1894, Page 38

Mnemonic Chess.

(Translated from the French of M Alfred Binet.)

"For instance," saya M. Schallop, "he does not know exactly whether a diagonal line is clear, or whether some little pawn may not have slipped on to it. He then appeals to his verbal memory —that is to say, he rscapitulates rapidly in his head in the form of words the whole series of moves made in their order, in order to verify his visual image, adjust, and even if necessary correct it. The nece ssity of this recapitulation becomes the greater for certain players because they play a great number of games simultaneously. M. Tolosa makes on this point a very interesting remark. " When I play a single game unseeing, the position appears to me at once like a picture at every move. Lately I tried to play three games running. Very good. When I wished to recall a position, I found it necessary to recapitulate the preceding moves. I pronounced these moves in a low voice, and by thus recapitulating recalled to my mind the visual image of the position." The internal language equally supplies to the visual imagination the appearance of the empty chessboard. The board comprises 64, alternate black and white squares, of which each has a special name. It is a picture which the unseeing player has in his head, as a good general ought to know thoroughly the topography of the field on which he means to give batile. A priori, it might be supposed that the representation of the chessboard was a matter of visual .memory, and that that alone would be able to produce, it exactly. That is not so. I myself have madd on some, and M. Prete has repeated on others, a very simple experiment. We have a3ked them the colour of a particular square taken at hazard. Most of those— l cjuld almost say aU— although they possessed a visual image of the empty board, could not p -rceive in a direct manner the colour of the square mentioned. They are obliged to reason the matter out and to use out-of-the way mnemonic means— a fact which proves the intervention of the internal language. The variety of different processes is incredible. Each has his own method. Some of the3e are voluntary ; others unconscious. Let us cite a few examples M. Taubenhau3, who sees the chessboard mentally during the play, cannot, nevertheless, name the colours of the different squares without going through the following little bit of reasoning. "The king's rooks, king's bishops, queens, and flueen's knights files in starting with White's, side have their white squares odd and their black even numbsrs. M. Tolosa-y-Carreras has through long practice come to associate the name of each square with its proper colour. M. Janowski has taken the trouble to learn by heart the colourd of the different squares, according to the German notation, and replies instantly that the square i 3 white or black. He knows it like a multiplication table, but if he Is asked to answer it by the French notation, his replies are all wrinjf. M. Sitteufiold, like M. Taubenhaus — employs a mechanical process. Thus, "in the German notation tiles starting from White's left-hand side are designated by the letter 3a, b, c, d, c, f, g, h. Now all the even numbers of tho files a, c, c, g are white. M. Gostz doe 3 not see the colours of the squares any more than other players, but he nevertheless announces them immediately, because his mind has established a co-relation between the squaro named and the p'ece which slands on it. Thu3 tho king's knight's fifth, is the square on which White's queen's bishops pins the Black king's knight ; and it is black; and.king's rooks five and queen's rooks four where thi White queen can give check to the Black king are white, the constant usa of the chessboard enables him to work out these reasonings very quickly. Let us add that Mes3r3 Rosenthai and Blackburn do not. any more than other player?, see in their visual image 1 the colours of the squares. It ti necessary to bear all these facts, and many others which we jpas3 over in mind, to appreciate the value of the visual'memory in unseeing play."