
This is where those skills start to work in combination with memory scientists call elaborative encoding. Remember what I said above about exercising your spatial and verbal memory? To remember that both pieces are pawns, both the boat and the seahorse could be pea green, or otherwise related to peas. In my case, I would see Ernie from Sesame Street pushing a sailboat at a seahorse. To rapidly memorize e4 e5, you would use your images for e, 4 and 5. Let’s take something simple for an example. This powerful approach will give you an image for each letter of the alphabet. You’ll also want to develop your skills with the pegword method. But if you really want to go for gold, learn a 00-99 PAO System. If for some reason it doesn’t suit you, give the Dominic System a look.Įither of these will give you an easy way to associate numbers with words. The classic approach to this simple skill is called the Major System. This will help you mentally label positions so they are easier to memorize.
Good chess openings how to#
I’m going to suggest that you learn how to memorize numbers. And if you add memorizing vocabulary to the mix, all the better.

So all mnemonics aside, make sure that you’re learning a language. īut these matters aside, generally working on improving your language abilities has been proven helpful. You’ll also want to know your defences very well, such as the French defence or the Sicilian defence. One obvious way to work with words is to make sure you know your Algebraic notation inside out. This finding means that instead of trying to remember abstract shapes, players mapped out word-based associations on Memory Palace journeys patterned on multi-branched “trees.” In fact, using words has been demonstrated as the key way the best players remember multiple moves. Scientists have shown that many chessmasters have strong verbal abilities. It’s purely a spatial memory exercise based on haptic memory findings that have been in use for thousands of years. ĭon’t worry if this exercise sounds silly. You can also play out a Knight’s tour or an expression of Warnsdorff’s Rule.

This will exercise your sense of where each piece might sit during a game. Then, navigate with your hand held in this shape across the board.
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Next, measure with your thumb and pointer finger a couple of the squares. Īs a simple exercise, get out a chess board. You will also want to turn the board into a Memory Palace. However, when it comes to how to memorize chess moves, you want to make sure that your spatial memory for the board is strong. Perceiving space is a cognitive ability that we are born with. That’s why we’ll start with these aspects. But they do.Īnd research shows that they are integral parts of why and how chessmasters excel at the game. Some of the initial steps I’m going to suggest won’t seem like they have to do with memory.
