# Using chess squares as memory palace



## abunickabhi (Dec 27, 2020)

I have been playing a lot of chess since childhood and have a lot of connection with the each of the 64 squares.

Is using chess squares to store an object a good enough technique. Will it be more useful as compared to say peg method?

The images and objects that have to be put on the chess squares can also be correlated to the pieces which naturally go there,
like b1 is the initial square of the white knight, but d5 squares is an ideal square for white knight in many systems.

I have started using chess squares for my memory technique to store letter quads for blindsolving Rubik’s cube event.

I hope I find others who find this technique useful.

Side note: I also posted this question on the Memory athletes forum to get their views on whether such a system is possible, https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/using-chess-squares-as-memory-palace/58251


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 27, 2020)

I could think this could work pretty well for someone who is really heavily into chess, since there would be a lot of context that could be associated with each square. I think it would be completely useless to someone who only plays chess occasionally; there wouldn't be enough context to make each square meaningful. Even though I played a good bit of chess when I was younger and even studied it some, I don't think I'm good enough at chess that it would work well for me; I think this would be the sort of thing that would help an 1800+ player, but not someone as weak at chess as I am.


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## Filipe Teixeira (Dec 27, 2020)

interesting discussion


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## jaredlucas (Dec 27, 2020)

I'd think that you could leverage anything that you know as well as your native language. A similar approach could be applied using musical notes for advanced musicians. You would be able to reduce the board size as you shouldn't need 64 squares. It's a very interesting concept. Try it out! I'd start by mapping the usual "ABCD" to "A1B1C1D1" and so on.


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## Deleted member 55877 (Dec 27, 2020)

I used to be addicted to chess, playing and studying hours every day, so I think this could actually be a good technique for me!


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## Tao Yu (Dec 27, 2020)

If you know lots of games by heart, you could use every game as a separate journey. Infinite journeys!!


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## Nir1213 (Dec 27, 2020)

i like chess, but i quit playing. I suck mann.

I think using chess sqaures as memory palaces is actually pretty good, with alot of storage in a total of 64.


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## tx789 (Dec 27, 2020)

jaredlucas said:


> I'd think that you could leverage anything that you know as well as your native language. A similar approach could be applied using musical notes for advanced musicians. You would be able to reduce the board size as you shouldn't need 64 squares. It's a very interesting concept. Try it out! I'd start by mapping the usual "ABCD" to "A1B1C1D1" and so on.


I don't know how well that would work. Using exact notes would work unless you have perfect pitch. I good relative pitch might helpm unless you did something like the locations are the keys of a piano of the frets of a guitar. But those would be far to similar to each other in my mind. 


I would think chess squares would be the same.


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## Deleted member 55877 (Dec 27, 2020)

tx789 said:


> I don't know how well that would work. Using exact notes would work unless you have perfect pitch. I good relative pitch might helpm unless you did something like the locations are the keys of a piano of the frets of a guitar. But those would be far to similar to each other in my mind.
> 
> 
> I would think chess squares would be the same.


For someone who is very experienced with chess, every square is unique in its own way.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 27, 2020)

tx789 said:


> I would think chess squares would be the same.


This is what I mean about this method only being useful for very experienced/good players. For chess experts, each square can be full of meaning, with lots of things that could be used to distinguish it. One could imagine using favorite attacks on a given square for each square, for instance, and have all kinds of visual hooks that could be used for that particular attack sequence. But in order for this to work, either the person would have to be a very experienced player who has lots of historical game context to work with to give each square meaning, or else the person would have to learn chess sequences that would make each square take on that meaning.


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## DNF_Cuber (Dec 27, 2020)

I agree with @Mike Hughey and I also think that chess squares could have more meaning to a person than a building( and/or more rooms) if you are experienced enough with them. I have always had trouble with roman rooms though.


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## jaredlucas (Dec 28, 2020)

tx789 said:


> I don't know how well that would work. Using exact notes would work unless you have perfect pitch. I good relative pitch might helpm unless you did something like the locations are the keys of a piano of the frets of a guitar. But those would be far to similar to each other in my mind.
> 
> 
> I would think chess squares would be the same.


I'd probably either map two octaves of semi tones or three octaves of a major scale (for example). Then each pair of notes is remembered as an interval. You'd have to be a beast at interval training and relative pitch, but it's certainly possible. Any opera singers in here? Haha.


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## DNF_Cuber (Dec 28, 2020)

jaredlucas said:


> I'd probably either map two octaves of semi tones or three octaves of a major scale (for example). Then each pair of notes is remembered as an interval. You'd have to be a beast at interval training and relative pitch, but it's certainly possible. Any opera singers in here? Haha.


Sounds like a lot of work. It would only be a proof of concept if you did, not a relevant technique probably.


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## abunickabhi (Jan 4, 2021)

Tao Yu said:


> If you know lots of games by heart, you could use every game as a separate journey. Infinite journeys!!


Wow thats a great idea as well, the progress of the game will be a well known journey in the mind, and we can easily making associations.

Never thought of having chess games as journeys but only chess squares, U S' R U' R S' R' U R' S2 U'.


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## Silky (Jan 7, 2021)

So I just came up with possibly a very good memorization method. This method would essentially be an ASCII scheme. This would mean for every pair you would only need to memorize a signal character and then ' translate ' as you solve. The scheme would be 0-9 and a-f which would cover all the positions needed.

This might actually be scuffed.. Will have to put in more thought/


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## abunickabhi (Jan 7, 2021)

Silky said:


> So I just came up with possibly a very good memorization method. This method would essentially be an ASCII scheme. This would mean for every pair you would only need to memorize a signal character and then ' translate ' as you solve. The scheme would be 0-9 and a-f which would cover all the positions needed.
> 
> This might actually be scuffed.. Will have to put in more thought/


ASCII is easy for the machine to understand. For humans its too hard. Alphabets are the most natural for humans, R U' S2 L S L2 S L U R' .


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## jaredlucas (Jan 11, 2021)

DNF_Cuber said:


> Sounds like a lot of work. It would only be a proof of concept if you did, not a relevant technique probably.



Yeah, it'd mostly be for funsies. Just happened upon this and thought it fit nicely.


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## abunickabhi (Jan 16, 2021)

jaredlucas said:


> Yeah, it'd mostly be for funsies. Just happened upon this and thought it fit nicely.


I think they did it to recognise the moves and not the BLD memo. So, it is a different thing.
Also they did it for fun, and for youtube content.

Here, I use chess squares for doing actual encoding of memo, in actual MBLD attempts.


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## jaredlucas (Jan 16, 2021)

abunickabhi said:


> I think they did it to recognise the moves and not the BLD memo. So, it is a different thing.
> Also they did it for fun, and for youtube content.
> 
> Here, I use chess squares for doing actual encoding of memo, in actual MBLD attempts.


I know it's not the same at all, but I figured you might enjoy it.


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