How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
December 19, 2011 at 9:44pm
I could lie to you and pretend that this had something, anything, to do with politics, but it doesn't. It's just really crafty and cunning and I think you'll love it a lot.
(Warning: He uses an inappropriate word in the middle of the clip. Just pretend you didn't hear it. It's worth it.)
So, can anyone figure out the part he doesn't explain?
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
First, a magician doesn't ever reveal his "actual" trick and the playing in pairs trick is well known. Second...you might notice that all those numbers pair up nicely and...well that would be telling.
Next, you'll be asking how James Galea's remarkable card trick works. The answers are as disappointing as the tricks are impressive.
Why ruin great showmanship?
May '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
Well, that's amaz... wait, what was I going to say?
May '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
Neat. Thanks.
May '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
It'd be fun to organize a Ricochet chess tournament.
Mar '11
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
My guess that he paired players up who had competed against each other before. Derren could probably go back and check tourney records to figure out how their matches ended. From that, he could get a pretty good idea of how many pieces would be left. Not a perfect method but close. In addition, he could concede in a match when he thought it might go under the number. What sticks in my mind is how the one player said he felt like he was playing a grandmaster for the first 15 moves. It could be at the 16th move Derren started playing on his own and tanked the match to get to the right number of pieces left. That's all I got . . .
Aug '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
@Govicide
You are way overthinking what he did, and buying into the illusion. This is wonderful of course, as was the trick.
Not as good as when I was called up by a mentalist who "predicted" what I wrote on an erasable board that was completely obfuscated from his view. He "read my mind." The effect was magnificent.
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
I'm in!
You can record my first round loss right now, but I'm still in.
Jan '11
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
There was an old Columbo episode where Peter Falk was matched up against Jack Cassidy, who was playing a magician. One of the tricks was that Cassidy asked Columbo to pick a random number between one and five, and when Columbo named it, Cassidy told him to pick up a nearby object, on which was written a note: "I knew you were going to pick <whatever>."
The trick, of course, was that Cassidy's character had planted several objects, each claiming to reveal a different "I knew you were going to pick --" number. When Columbo named his number, all Cassidy had to do was remember on which object he had placed the corresponding note.
Is this a variant of that? Did he pick that specific player to reveal the eventual number sequence, while others had different sequences, in case the results were different?
Still trying to guess how he knew how many pieces were left from each game. That should be fun.
Jun '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
Nathaniel Wright: First, a magician doesn't ever reveal his "actual" trick and the playing in pairs trick is well known. Second...you might notice that all those numbers pair up nicely and...well that would be telling. ...
Why ruin great showmanship? · Dec 19 at 1:29pm
This is usually how magic works (I've had some friends that made a living being magicians for a while, and what can I say, curiosity gets the best of you eventually). Many times, when you actually figure/find out how the trick is done, it's a great deal less complicated or impressive than it first seemed. A lesson for life, perhaps.
That said, Derren Brown's stuff is a lot of fun; he's had a number of television specials in the UK. You can YouTube up quite a few of his clips.
Aug '11
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
The piece count at the end of a chess game is not random. Just the opposite, it follows a known probability distribution. So Derren Brown selects the most like number distribution for 9 games. But note that Derren's number are unordered.
As previously mentioned, Derren Brown had some control when a game ended. When a game reached his desired piece count, he could ask for a draw or even concede.
Put together: Mr. Brown matches his unordered piece count distribution to a matching game.
Oct '11
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
I was thinking something along the lines of what Charles suggested, as they weren't ordered. While he probably had to stay mirrored for most of the win/loss matches, if he saw that he was going to draw, he could break off and control the amount of pieces for that match, as well as the one real match he was playing. The win/loss matches finished before the others, so he knew what he had to achieve in the drawn matches.
So a typical (perhaps biased a bit with range) distribution, coupled with the ending of the two drawn games where he has control, would give him a good chance. He did give himself that one mistake, and it looked like there were numbers on the other side of the paper.
Edited on December 20, 2011 at 4:13amDec '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
The explanation is very simple. He bribed the ninth player, as it is extremely likely that any chess master would beat an amateur. As for the number on the paper, as always slight of hand substitutes the paper at the end and the witness who held the envelope just provides drama. The MC gave his game away when he said that chess masters see 20 moves into the future. They don't, they couldn't. Possible Chess moves multiply so rapidly that 20 moves in is impossible to humanly calculate. Only if the players follow a known opening for that long could this be true. The old Russian masters, hyperconservative defensive players would do this. However, Bobby Fischer had a habit of exploding out of a known opening into totally unknown Chess long before 20 moves.
This scenario would not have occured if the normal format of chess competition was in force and this had been a world championship. However, it is a strange parallel to the Republican debates. The normal format of debating was not followed. This allowed manipulative moderators to control the event. They used manipulative techniques to damage the Republican field. This is not so amusing.
Edited on December 20, 2011 at 4:18amNov '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
This could be done online. For example, players could join and play for free at a site like <<www.redhotpawn.com >>.
Here's a recent game of mine. My opponent gets too greedy for his own good.
http://www.redhotpawn.com/gameanalysis/boardhistory.php?gameid=8468384
Jan '11
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
Charles Rapp: The piece count at the end of a chess game is not random. Just the opposite, it follows a known probability distribution. So Derren Brown selects the most like number distribution for 9 games. But note that Derren's number are unordered.
As previously mentioned, Derren Brown had some control when a game ended. When a game reached his desired piece count, he could ask for a draw or even concede.
Put together: Mr. Brown matches his unordered piece count distribution to a matching game. · Dec 19 at 5:41pm
I'm pretty sure that you've got the correct explanation here.
KC Mulville:
Is this a variant of that? Did he pick that specific player to reveal the eventual number sequence, while others had different sequences, in case the results were different?
He only selected one of the guys to hold the numbers, though.
Aug '10
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
Oops. Wrong thread...
Edited on December 20, 2011 at 3:43pmMay '11
Re: How to Beat Nine Chess Grandmasters Simultaneously
The commenters who are suggesting that Derren Brown was free to resign or offer a draw at any point were wrong -- this would break the mirroring principle. If I resign, but the guy that I'm mirroring does not resign, he may decide to fight on and play for a draw (and against a weaker player, a grandmaster might even achieve a win!). Ditto if I offer a draw, but the player I'm mirroring did not offer one first.
My guess is that Brown achieved this through manipulation. At the very least this is the sort of thing that Brown claims elsewhere to be able to do. Nathaniel Wright was correct in noting the rough pairing of numbers. In matches against evenly paired opponents, it is likely that there won't be a great discrepancy in the number of pieces between the opponents. When the games got down to his target number of pieces, he manipulated the more suggestible player to either resign or offer a draw, depending on their relative advantage.
Edited on December 21, 2011 at 5:42am