Chess and memory: what grandmasters remember (and why)
Among games to boost memory, chess has a place of its own: masters remember a position seen for a few seconds, but only if it resembles a real game. Their memory is not “bigger”; it is filled with tens of thousands of learned patterns. It is a specialised memory, which does not automatically transfer to the rest of life.
Chunk: a group of pieces memorised as a single unit, for example a castled king with its protecting pawns. William Chase and Herbert Simon identified this mechanism in expert players in 1973; it explains why a master can remember a position in a few seconds.
De Groot, Chase and Simon: the five-second experiment
It all begins in the Netherlands. The psychologist and player Adriaan de Groot defended a thesis in 1946, Het denken van den schaker, translated into English in 1965 as Thought and Choice in Chess. In it he shows that great players do not calculate many more moves than good amateurs: they see the good moves faster. Among his experiments, one striking test: briefly showing a position, then asking the player to reconstruct it.
In 1973, William Chase and Herbert Simon, a future Nobel laureate in economics, repeated the test at Carnegie Mellon University with a decisive variation: random positions.
Chase and Simon, 1973 · Cognitive Psychology
Perception in chess
- Who
- 3 players (a master, an experienced player, a beginner)
- Type
- Memorisation experiments · level of evidence: Foundational (small sample)
- Result
- After 5 seconds of observation, the master places back far more pieces than the others on a game position; on a random position, all recall only three or four pieces on average.
- What the study does not say
- Three participants; results since confirmed by many studies.
The result went around psychology. On a game position, the master puts back almost everything; on a random position, he does no better than the beginner. The conclusion: the master’s memory is not a photographic memory, it is a memory of knowledge. He does not remember 25 pieces, he remembers five or six familiar configurations.
50,000 patterns in memory
Fernand Gobet, today one of the leading researchers on expertise in chess, refined the model with Herbert Simon in the 1990s.
Gobet and Simon, 1996 · Memory & Cognition
Recall of random and distorted chess positions: Implications for the theory of expertise
- Who
- Players of varying levels
- Type
- Memorisation experiments · level of evidence: Moderate
- Result
- Memory for positions rests on patterns tied to their location; the usual estimate of about 50,000 “chunks” stored by a master is compatible with the data. Experts keep a small advantage even on scrambled positions.
- What the study does not say
- Measures a specialised memory, not memory in general.
These patterns also explain the intuition of strong players: recognising a configuration also means remembering what is usually played in it. Brain imaging points the same way. In the study by Amidzic and colleagues published in Nature in 2001, grandmasters’ activity is concentrated in frontal and parietal regions, interpreted as the retrieval of stored patterns, whereas that of amateurs lies more in the medial temporal lobe, associated with encoding new information. We detail this work on the page about the chess player’s brain.
Key takeaway. You do not become strong at chess because you have an exceptional memory; you develop an exceptional memory for chess by playing and studying a great deal.
Blindfold games
Playing without seeing the board, announcing your moves, always impresses. Players who manage it do not “photograph” the board: they rely on the same patterns, to which is added a mental representation of the chessboard trained by years of practice. Strong players often describe it as an overview of the relationships between pieces rather than a precise image. This ability is acquired through practice: it is not a mysterious gift.
Simultaneous blindfold games, against several opponents, have been practised by many champions since the 19th century. They demand enormous concentration and have sometimes been judged too exhausting; it is a specialist’s feat, not an exercise to impose on a beginner.
What is cognitive memory?
The expression “cognitive memory” is not a precise technical term: it generally refers to all the kinds of memory used for thinking. Psychologists distinguish several, all used in chess to varying degrees.
| Memory | Short definition | In chess |
|---|---|---|
| Working memory | Holding and manipulating a few pieces of information for a few seconds | Calculating a variation without touching the pieces |
| Semantic memory | General knowledge, facts, concepts | Rules, strategic principles, openings |
| Episodic memory | Memories of events experienced | Remembering a game played at the club |
| Procedural memory | Automated skills | Moving the pieces, tactical reflexes |
| Perceptual memory | Pattern recognition | “Chunks”: recognising a typical position |
Games to boost memory: a comparison
What is the best game for memory? No study can name a winner. Each game mainly exercises the memory it needs, and that is precisely what the work on chess shows: you improve at what you train.
| Game | Memory mainly used | Length of a game | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chess | Working, perceptual, semantic | 10 minutes to several hours | From age 5-6, no upper age limit |
| Memory | Short-term visual | 10 minutes | Children, seniors |
| Bridge, belote | Working (cards played), semantic (conventions) | 20 minutes and more | Teenagers, adults |
| Scrabble, crosswords | Semantic (vocabulary) | 20 to 60 minutes | Adults |
| Draughts | Working, perceptual | 15 to 60 minutes | From age 6 |
| Sudoku | Working | 10 to 30 minutes | Adults |
For older people, the page board games for older people offers a suitable selection, and our comparison which games train your brain brings together the available studies.
Training your memory for chess
How do you train your brain for chess? The effective methods follow directly from pattern theory: the aim is to accumulate patterns, and good ones.
- Solve tactical exercises every day: each motif solved becomes a recognisable pattern.
- Replay master games, trying to guess the next move before discovering it.
- Analyse your own games, especially defeats: mistakes are memorised well once understood.
- Visualise: read a short sequence of moves and follow it in your head, then check on the board.
- Learn few openings, but understand them: a plan you have retained is worth more than a list of moves.
Le Palais des Échecs has devoted a practical article to this subject: memory, the player’s best ally.
What the memory studies do not say
- That playing chess improves memory for names, errands or appointments: transfer to other domains has not been demonstrated.
- That strong players naturally have a better memory than others: on random positions, the gap is small.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best game for memory?
There is not just one. Each game mainly trains the memory it needs: Memory trains short-term visual memory, Scrabble vocabulary, chess working memory and pattern recognition. Varying your games is the best strategy.
What is cognitive memory?
It is a common expression for all the kinds of memory used for thinking: working memory, memory for knowledge, memory for personal events and memory for skills. Psychologists study them separately, because they do not all decline at the same rate.
How do you train your brain for chess?
By regularly solving tactical exercises, replaying annotated games, analysing your own games and practising visualising moves without playing them. These methods build up the stock of patterns that strong players recognise at a glance.