Amazing Kids: The Mozart of Chess

     I'll start out with being honest and say that I did not watch the entire episode of sixty minutes. I skimmed over the script. The part about the chess prodigy, Mangus Carlsen interested me most. I found his segment in the episode, and I watched it.
   
     The segment started out with this 23 year old man playing chess with ten people at a time. Not only that, but he is doing it with his back turned to the boards. He would say his move aloud and his opponent would move his piece for him. Then his opponent would say his/her move aloud, and Carlsen would move on to the next opponent. He was keeping track of not only his pieces, but his opponents' pieces, totaling three hundred and twenty pieces... all in his mind.

     He won every single one of those matches. When asked about this incredible performance (referring to his ability to memorize the position of 320 chess pieces at a time), he just responded like it was no big deal. "It's one of the amazing things in chess that you can-- you don't really need the board. You can just keep it--" he said pointing to his head. I watched "60 Minutes Overtime: A Chess Prodigy Explains How His Mind Works" where I got to see a little more of the interview. Carlsen said that sometimes he would have to replay the entire chess match in his mind to remember where all the pieces were. His interviewer asked him about how long this took him and he responded with, "Oh, about half a minute." This kid is incredible to me. 

     Besides the fact that he was a child prodigy, nearly beating the world champion at the age of thirteen. I'm impressed with his impeccable memory. He remembers all of his past matches, and also matches that chess masters have played in the past, totaling over ten thousand matches sitting in his mind. The 60 Minute interviewer gave him a little quiz. He set up a chess board from one of Carlsen's past matches. He looked at the board and chuckled, naming where the match took place, his opponent, and what year it was, and that he was thirteen when it happened.

     Although Carlsen's great memory seems to be some sort of natural gift, there are some ways that a great memory can be developed. Throughout the segment, I kept remembering an episode of Ted Talks about memory. It's called Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do. It's about twenty minutes, but it's worth the watch. Here's a link to it ----> LINK! and it's also on Netflix under Ted Talks: Life Hacks. Basically, it breaks down memory into a science, and then turns it into a learned skill. It's very interesting, and it's already helped me with studying and remembering things that I really need to remember, but haven't been. You should definitely check it out.


Here's a video of a Slow Loris eating a rice ball!