1:59 I love how he says he has been reading all of their transcripts, but he didn't bother learning their names... not that it's important, but still. Makes the lie more believable.
And, if he has to wait for the other player to move, it means he would have to go around 2-3x for every move at least. Probably way more. Which made the whole thing seem really weird to chess pros.
I saw a simpler way to rig this a decade or two back: the chessboards were arranged in a hotel lobby around a large solid diameter circular column, so no player could see the adjacent games. The trickster walked around the outside, from board to board, and only had to remember one move, because the layout meant that he did not have to separate the players who were playing each other.The other way he made it easy on himself was to have an even number of players. This simplified hustle would not require any chess playing skill whatsoever to "win" half the games against the world's best, and makes minimal demands on memory.
Prometheus4096 What? No... The trick was playing them against each other and beating one of them. Also, I don't mean to be rude at all, but it's 'taught' not 'learned' if you're looking for the past tense of someone teaching something to someone else.
Patrik Manni Yes. It is an old well known trick among chess players. Has been used several times by correspondence chess players. And 'to teach' and 'to learn' are two different verbs. No idea why you are confused about that.
Prometheus4096 You said "Chess players learned him...". That makes no sense. It's supposed to be "Chess players taught him..." or "He learnt this trick from...".
I think the mistake in the "prediction" is not an accident. The paper inside the envelope had a 6 on the front of it all along. With some excellent sleight of hand, Derren sticks the paper with the rest of the numbers to the piece of paper with the 6 which the chess player is holding. So the piece with the 6 never leaves the man's hand and the 6 is in sight the whole time. I'm guessing 6 is statistically the most likely number of pieces left on a chess board when a game is over. Derren got quite lucky, because he was only one off. Ofcourse, he would have been REALLY lucky if that player had had exactly 6 pieces left :-)
***** I don't understand why he didn't make the trick with 100% though - there was a game which finished with 6 pieces, he could just use it instead of applying the prediction "6" to the game which finished with 7 pieces.
My guess is that Derren managed to get Graham Lee on table #1 in on the trick. And he didn't play table 1 v. table 5, he played table 5 v. table 9. So when Derren used sleight of hand opening the letter, Graham didn't protest since he was in on the trick. The mistake at the beginning serves to deflect attention away from Graham. OK I'm sorry, after looking at the results, it couldn't have been exactly like that. But is it possible Derren somehow brought two games back to Graham--one they played on the table, and another they signaled to each other based on game #9? It's not unheard of for a master to play two games at once, especially when one of them is against the president of a chess club who is not ranked.
You can see exactly how he does the numbers trick if you pay close attention when he takes the folded up paper from the chess guy. When he takes it, he hides it behind another folded up paper, and then keeps it hidden between the paper as it is unfolded. It's sleight of hand.
Funny how none of the players found it normal for some games to be played with the white and some with the black pieces by Darren. Darren should be getting the white pieces in all games, per normal procedure.
hthought that wouldn't change much. There's a way to transform the boards colours backwards in your brain. Just mirror and flip then invert the colours
@@ComedyPal667 It's not about color, it's about who moves first. White always makes the first move, thus mirroring an opponent against another opponent becomes effectively impossible unless their starting order is also mirrored.
I would find a task like this incredibly difficult catering to only 2 pairs of games. To do that with four pairs while SIMULTANEOUSLY playing a real game of chess is absolutely stunning. This man's mental capacity is mind-blowing.
ostkartong I know nothing about magic, but some kinda weird something goes on from 6:18 - 6:21. During that time, he's actually physically holding the papers in his hand, directing how exactly how it's unfolded, etc, using the 6 (the number he got wrong) as a shield. 3 seconds seems like an eternity in the world of sleight of hand. Also, whether he's technically lying is probably completely meaningless because all of that, "As you can see, there are no mirrors," type of talk that magicians do is just a misdirection anyway. Who cares that he never touches the envelope? It seems to have successfully distracted us from the fact that he unnecessarily grasps and spins and unfolds the paper itself, even though the assistant is probably wholly capable of unfolding a piece of paper.
@tassay You’re right, but the pro’s would understand they were playing a poor game. But I was mistaken, I understand how he did it, the players did effectivaly play between each other. Table 1: memorize player 1’s move Table 5: Play player 1’s move Wait for player 5 to play memorize player 5’s move Table 1: Play player 5’s move Wait for player 1 to play Got to the start.
Probably my favorite Derren Brown. I love proper planning and preparation and the high you get when you succeed, not the recognition you get for doing it but being recognized that you did it. You know what I mean?
I figured out what he was doing as soon as I saw half the players had opposite colors, but the execution and the additional trick of "predicting" pieces left over were excellent showmanship.
Brown probably payed Chan off here.... Chans rated 1500 and that aint that bad.. to be sure to win derren would have to be around 1700+ and that while remembering all the moves on the other tables. Many players play for years without reaching 1700 + rating so Chan was likely bribed..
this could be done better with radio micro-earphone and a computer computers nowadays play better than top humans, so they can beat average grandmaster easily get an assistant who would watch through hidden camera, input human moves into computer and tell magician which peace to move and you dont even need to know chess rules
Seems plausible. The only issue is that even an average chess hobbiest can tell they are playing against a computer after a dozen or so moves, let alone grandmasters.
Well, that depends on what you mean by better. It wasn't about beating people at chess most efficiently, it was about what he was able to do by memory.
This supports my theory that most RUclips video titles are lies. (in this one, the lie is that he beats the 9 players- obviously false to anyone who's watched the video) #MostRUclipsVideoTitlesAreLies
I really enjoyed this. They were actually playing each other, he was merely exhibiting a fantastic ability to remember things. As for the prediction of number of pieces left, that was his magician persona tossed in for fun. He pulled a trick on that one somehow or another, lol.
At the same time, it's his turn to play on one of the boards and his opponent's turn to play in the other board. They are using different colors, he's not playing at the same color in both to allow his opponent to make different options.
@Rimber6 You don't get it. He never really opened. On the boards where he was white, he played the moves his opponents on the other side of the room played before him.
Having played a lot of chess, and not being too shabby at it, I new his trick the second the cameras showed the boards alternating. I knew at some level he was just mimicking games. Brilliant trick though!
Holy smokes, that is a very clever way to simultaneously play nine games of chess -- four against grandmasters -- and come out on top overall. It's something that I now want to try, as that was just... wow. Clever.
@IEatCray0ns If i recall correctly I think at the beginning of the show, he was a bystander that picked up the pay phone when it rang. He past out like that, and suddenly gained consciousness later on at the end of the show.
@BillMan2002 he explains in the video, there is a pattern to each player he goes against, he just repeats another players move against another player, in other words he is a vessel for a chess match between different players.
Its important to also see that this could be done on any number of people at the same time. as long as you can remember 2 digts for each game skipped (the notation of the move) I dont think there is a pocket trick with the number. It is 2 sided to be sure, 1 number is wrong (which happens to be the game he actually played). Most obvious explination I can think of is by looking at end game positions of games recorded for that specific player.
6:17 the moment when he comes back he tug onto the paper, its at this moment he executes a good-ole-magician trick, thus making it seem like he predicted a numbers, the mirror chess setup was a very great system he discovered, that is amazing
It's not about figuring out the trick, it's about using his technics, which he also describe in his book; "Derren Brown - Tricks of the Mind". It's about memorising patterns, and how to use them.
@Tweakisher no they would eventually play a different move and even if he then went to the other board and play the same move, he would possibly get a different result depending on how far into the game he was going.
@NightHawk0085 That leaves the problem of Chan responding differently than the player he is supposed to mimic, leaving an entirely different boardstate in just a few turns.
just remembering the moves makes it amazing anyways. It was awesome and a nice little trick. Also the number of pieces left he predicted was some trick I don't think I would figure out
He just remember the move someone plays and repeat it on the other board. Then, after his opponent replies with his own move, he repeats that move on the other board, and so on. For example, his opponent starts with e4. He doesn't have to respond immediately, so he just moves on. Then, when he gets to the board that's paired with the board in which the player started with e4, he also plays e4. And then, he copies whatever his opponent's response is back on the other board when he gets there.
I've seen some people claim very confidently that the numbers on the long paper at the end was a sleight of hand trick, that he switched it when he grabbed it after Graham Lee took it out of the envelope, but that's not true. You can see some of the numbers on there before he touches it, if you look closely. Graham had already unfolded it some and looked. Also, some claim it's a statistical trick, which is silly.
as for the numbers, I think there are 2 strong possibilities. 1. He chose random numbers and tried to make them fit, but failed. 2. he did something when he helped the chess master open the package that he gave him.
I agree. The last guy, Robert Chan is president of king's college London, chess society, so he is the head of a club or something of the sort. So that case, you have to be looking at him being somewhere around the 1600-1800+ range ELO. Derren Brown must be somewhere around there to beat him.
@Darth814Vader keep in mind he claims he was playing one real game of chess, but at the same time he was getting a variety of moves and ideas from grand/international masters. Also, Derren has exceptional memory (the average human can only remember 7 things at once, and he was able to remember 8 while playing a game of real chess). Derren probably has studied chess quite be on par with great players and felt confident in his playing ability.
I'm pretty sure that he took the original paper and then put the other half of the paper he somehow produced in the guy's hand. It happens really fast so it's hard to tell.
In a way Darren is like a referee in the middle. A variant known as Blind chess takes this where there are 2 players and a referee between them. Each player only sees a board with their own pieces on the board and makes a move. The referee makes this move on the middle board which has both white and black pieces on it. The ref goes over to blacks table and than Black moves. Hard to checkmate because you can only see your own pieces and hope for the best...
I assumed he just said that to ham it up to the crowd. Derren could put his mind to chess and be brilliant, he has the perfect mind for it. Intelligent, memory skills and thinking ahead.
One way he could have done the trick with the number is to simply guess (with the help of some analysis like "what opening will he most likely play etc.) and if the number is close enough (one wrong) reveal it, otherwise look for nine other players and do the whole show again. He used this "trick" in another episode when he convinced several people they'd guess the right horses and only showed the one person who won on tv.
He was actually mirroring the top Grandmaster twice, once towards the corresponding table, and once with table 9. Derren probably actually studies his style and tie him up with someone really similar, top chess players have similar opening moves and that way the two table can deviate as late as possible, if that make sense to you guys.
im guessing he did some sleight of hand to slip in the new sheet when he went in to grab the guy's hand and unfold the paper. he could have prepared the new paper sometime after finishing the games and before filming that bit
Make no mistake, they did to. This is a very well known and easy to think of trick that everyone who has played a decent amount of chess would have both though about themselves or heard about. Everyone in the room knew what was going on, the only thing I'm surprised about is that the GM's were pretty decent at pretending to be fooled.
This is impossible to do the way he explained it. From what I could see he started playing as black and opened c5 against whites e4. He divided all of them into pairs, meaning that the other pair across from the "e4-c5"-table have to play exactly the same as the "e4-c5"-table. Let's say he try to copy the e4 move at the other table, and his opponent answers with for example e5, then it's suddenly a totally different game and he's screwed right from beginning.
@NameMoon I think you're up to something there. Most magician wanted some kind of recognition of magical power that they possess after the performance they did. Otherwise, there is no point of doing these performances. The reason he gives away the "secret" of his success is because he wants us to think that these were legitimate chess games while in fact each game was all pre-memorized by each players. Yeah, good touch on the number "6" mistake. It makes most of us a believer.
He didn't make a move as black at table 1. He saw what white did first, and then moved on, without moving a piece. It's legal to do that. He explains this in the video so watch it again and listen carefully.
@moda112 My guess would be that these paired chess players have played one another many times before. Derren could have then simply used their past games' statistics to determine what would be the most likely outcome of many pieces would be left at the end of this match.
+Cellkist He just played 9 masters simultaneously and beat them all as a collective AND predicted the number of pieces left even before the game started. And its Derren..
@woyay but how he was able to predict each games end - how many pieces would be left for each game - before they even started playing is my question. don't understand how he could do that no matter how good his memory..
He probably said something at the beginning like "you'll think that you have this all figured out, but something that happens will still be surprising" - just getting them to acknowledge that yes, he could be mirroring, but what else does he have up his sleeve here?
Now, by planning. It's being thrown into action then taking the correct immediate steps necessary to win by knowing what your doing ahead of time. He's playing the one against the next one then the next one and so on!
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
1:59 I love how he says he has been reading all of their transcripts, but he didn't bother learning their names... not that it's important, but still. Makes the lie more believable.
I wonder if any of them found it odd that he'd wait at their board for them to move, and then walk away before moving himself. I imagine yes.
And, if he has to wait for the other player to move, it means he would have to go around 2-3x for every move at least. Probably way more. Which made the whole thing seem really weird to chess pros.
Omg. An ancient Jerry comment on a random chess video! Almost feels like I've found a hidden treasure.
@@TTArt wow that’s crazy actually
Not to say those opposing colors lol
nicee, "have been analysing your gus game for a year, ... what's your name?" xD
hahhahaha so true xD
I saw a simpler way to rig this a decade or two back: the chessboards were arranged in a hotel lobby around a large solid diameter circular column, so no player could see the adjacent games. The trickster walked around the outside, from board to board, and only had to remember one move, because the layout meant that he did not have to separate the players who were playing each other.The other way he made it easy on himself was to have an even number of players. This simplified hustle would not require any chess playing skill whatsoever to "win" half the games against the world's best, and makes minimal demands on memory.
Chess players hate him, but you can use this one weird trick.
Chess players learned him this trick/ he did a google search and copied their method.
Prometheus4096 What? No... The trick was playing them against each other and beating one of them. Also, I don't mean to be rude at all, but it's 'taught' not 'learned' if you're looking for the past tense of someone teaching something to someone else.
Patrik Manni
Yes. It is an old well known trick among chess players. Has been used several times by correspondence chess players.
And 'to teach' and 'to learn' are two different verbs. No idea why you are confused about that.
Prometheus4096 You said "Chess players learned him...". That makes no sense. It's supposed to be "Chess players taught him..." or "He learnt this trick from...".
Patrik Manni
cool story bro
I think the mistake in the "prediction" is not an accident. The paper inside the envelope had a 6 on the front of it all along. With some excellent sleight of hand, Derren sticks the paper with the rest of the numbers to the piece of paper with the 6 which the chess player is holding. So the piece with the 6 never leaves the man's hand and the 6 is in sight the whole time.
I'm guessing 6 is statistically the most likely number of pieces left on a chess board when a game is over. Derren got quite lucky, because he was only one off. Ofcourse, he would have been REALLY lucky if that player had had exactly 6 pieces left :-)
***** I don't understand why he didn't make the trick with 100% though - there was a game which finished with 6 pieces, he could just use it instead of applying the prediction "6" to the game which finished with 7 pieces.
+Artur Kirkoryan To make it more real and appearing as some kind of an imperfect skill rather than trick
The tables were numbered, he couldn't change the order as he wanted...
My guess is that Derren managed to get Graham Lee on table #1 in on the trick. And he didn't play table 1 v. table 5, he played table 5 v. table 9. So when Derren used sleight of hand opening the letter, Graham didn't protest since he was in on the trick. The mistake at the beginning serves to deflect attention away from Graham.
OK I'm sorry, after looking at the results, it couldn't have been exactly like that. But is it possible Derren somehow brought two games back to Graham--one they played on the table, and another they signaled to each other based on game #9? It's not unheard of for a master to play two games at once, especially when one of them is against the president of a chess club who is not ranked.
He said his chess game was shit, yet he can still beat the president of the chess club at London college. Hah. Ok.
You watched the whole video, right?
Josh S Did either of YOU two watch the whole video? At the end of the video he said he was playing one real game at table 9, which we won.
Steven Axe Lol two idiots
Josh S Are you stupid? Jesus.
+Albert Lovejoy No, he's just trying a terrible backtrack.
You can see exactly how he does the numbers trick if you pay close attention when he takes the folded up paper from the chess guy. When he takes it, he hides it behind another folded up paper, and then keeps it hidden between the paper as it is unfolded. It's sleight of hand.
That was great. The moment he said divide them into pairs I got it right away. Freaking genius.
I'd still love to see an explanation for how he predicted the numbers at the end. And I don't believe him entirely about the 9th player.
Funny how none of the players found it normal for some games to be played with the white and some with the black pieces by Darren. Darren should be getting the white pieces in all games, per normal procedure.
hthought that wouldn't change much. There's a way to transform the boards colours backwards in your brain. Just mirror and flip then invert the colours
@@ComedyPal667
It's not about color, it's about who moves first. White always makes the first move, thus mirroring an opponent against another opponent becomes effectively impossible unless their starting order is also mirrored.
@@jessesipprell8287 riiight, thanks
I promise you they knew. They were just playing along.
I would find a task like this incredibly difficult catering to only 2 pairs of games. To do that with four pairs while SIMULTANEOUSLY playing a real game of chess is absolutely stunning. This man's mental capacity is mind-blowing.
I thought about this since this is already done in one of the Sidney Sheldon's Novel
He secretly mirrored their moves on a different board. So basically it like the grandmasters are playing them selves.
6:01 "I don't wanna touch you"
*five seconds later*
Touches arm at 6:06
"I don't wanna touch it" aka the envelope. And he doesn't either (touch the envelope that is). So all is well.
ostkartong I know nothing about magic, but some kinda weird something goes on from 6:18 - 6:21. During that time, he's actually physically holding the papers in his hand, directing how exactly how it's unfolded, etc, using the 6 (the number he got wrong) as a shield. 3 seconds seems like an eternity in the world of sleight of hand. Also, whether he's technically lying is probably completely meaningless because all of that, "As you can see, there are no mirrors," type of talk that magicians do is just a misdirection anyway. Who cares that he never touches the envelope? It seems to have successfully distracted us from the fact that he unnecessarily grasps and spins and unfolds the paper itself, even though the assistant is probably wholly capable of unfolding a piece of paper.
@tassay
You’re right, but the pro’s would understand they were playing a poor game.
But I was mistaken, I understand how he did it, the players did effectivaly play between each other.
Table 1:
memorize player 1’s move
Table 5:
Play player 1’s move
Wait for player 5 to play
memorize player 5’s move
Table 1:
Play player 5’s move
Wait for player 1 to play
Got to the start.
just a normal guy lieing in the streets 9:37
gn
thats a very nice strategy and actually im very impressed
We're all adults here right? Fucking brilliant!!!
im not, im 14
Greenzy Then disregard any words that are offensive...😳😉😉
Probably my favorite Derren Brown. I love proper planning and preparation and the high you get when you succeed, not the recognition you get for doing it but being recognized that you did it. You know what I mean?
That cringe worthy laugh at 4:29 though
I figured out what he was doing as soon as I saw half the players had opposite colors, but the execution and the additional trick of "predicting" pieces left over were excellent showmanship.
Brown probably payed Chan off here.... Chans rated 1500 and that aint that bad.. to be sure to win derren would have to be around 1700+ and that while remembering all the moves on the other tables. Many players play for years without reaching 1700 + rating so Chan was likely bribed..
Andreas sUND or brainfuked in advance
This chess thing was just a snippet of a longer Derren Brown episode. Thanks for the upload!
this could be done better with radio micro-earphone and a computer
computers nowadays play better than top humans, so they can beat average grandmaster easily
get an assistant who would watch through hidden camera, input human moves into computer and tell magician which peace to move and you dont even need to know chess rules
Seems plausible. The only issue is that even an average chess hobbiest can tell they are playing against a computer after a dozen or so moves, let alone grandmasters.
Well, that depends on what you mean by better. It wasn't about beating people at chess most efficiently, it was about what he was able to do by memory.
David Xu then just have a grandmaster or two correcting that in the background as well
Timur Nurmagambetov The point was that he wasn't using a radio or mic.
David Xu What gives the computer away?
5:56
"One of SEVERAL memory feats that I was indulging in"
Cheeky.
This supports my theory that most RUclips video titles are lies.
(in this one, the lie is that he beats the 9 players- obviously false to anyone who's watched the video)
#MostRUclipsVideoTitlesAreLies
He beat them overall in a group. It wasn't through skill but through deceit. That still counts as a win.
Ilysanth Amaranthine The title says he beat 9 players simultaneously. That's a lie. It might count as one win but certainly not nine.
Dude I love your channel, awesome that you came across the video I'm watching.
Had to re watch because the ending just blew me away for its simplicity.
@JDoucette I think the lighting in the room is meant to keep each players attention on THEIR board.
I really enjoyed this. They were actually playing each other, he was merely exhibiting a fantastic ability to remember things. As for the prediction of number of pieces left, that was his magician persona tossed in for fun. He pulled a trick on that one somehow or another, lol.
At the same time, it's his turn to play on one of the boards and his opponent's turn to play in the other board. They are using different colors, he's not playing at the same color in both to allow his opponent to make different options.
@Rimber6 You don't get it. He never really opened. On the boards where he was white, he played the moves his opponents on the other side of the room played before him.
Having played a lot of chess, and not being too shabby at it, I new his trick the second the cameras showed the boards alternating. I knew at some level he was just mimicking games. Brilliant trick though!
Holy smokes, that is a very clever way to simultaneously play nine games of chess -- four against grandmasters -- and come out on top overall.
It's something that I now want to try, as that was just... wow. Clever.
I love how he explains the obvious trick but not the one that makes you really wonder.
This was a clip from a TV show, that would be the next segment of the show or even an advertisement I believe.
@IEatCray0ns If i recall correctly I think at the beginning of the show, he was a bystander that picked up the pay phone when it rang. He past out like that, and suddenly gained consciousness later on at the end of the show.
@SilentKek It couldn't have been up his sleeve. He only touched the paper to get the optimal dramatic effect. There was no switch.
This was very fun to watch. I want to try replicating this some day.
@BillMan2002 he explains in the video, there is a pattern to each player he goes against, he just repeats another players move against another player, in other words he is a vessel for a chess match between different players.
Its important to also see that this could be done on any number of people at the same time. as long as you can remember 2 digts for each game skipped (the notation of the move)
I dont think there is a pocket trick with the number. It is 2 sided to be sure, 1 number is wrong (which happens to be the game he actually played).
Most obvious explination I can think of is by looking at end game positions of games recorded for that specific player.
LOVE darren brown, wish his show was still on
6:17 the moment when he comes back he tug onto the paper, its at this moment he executes a good-ole-magician trick, thus making it seem like he predicted a numbers, the mirror chess setup was a very great system he discovered, that is amazing
It's not about figuring out the trick, it's about using his technics, which he also describe in his book; "Derren Brown - Tricks of the Mind". It's about memorising patterns, and how to use them.
@Tweakisher no they would eventually play a different move and even if he then went to the other board and play the same move, he would possibly get a different result depending on how far into the game he was going.
It's cutting back to the segment where he was making people fall asleep whenever they picked up a public telephone.
@NightHawk0085 That leaves the problem of Chan responding differently than the player he is supposed to mimic, leaving an entirely different boardstate in just a few turns.
just remembering the moves makes it amazing anyways. It was awesome and a nice little trick. Also the number of pieces left he predicted was some trick I don't think I would figure out
This trick has been around for a long time (or so I've gathered from reading the comments), but watching it the first time it pretty funny.
He actually remebers the number of pieces, but the paper is pulled form his sleeve so its probalby written after the game
He just remember the move someone plays and repeat it on the other board. Then, after his opponent replies with his own move, he repeats that move on the other board, and so on.
For example, his opponent starts with e4. He doesn't have to respond immediately, so he just moves on. Then, when he gets to the board that's paired with the board in which the player started with e4, he also plays e4. And then, he copies whatever his opponent's response is back on the other board when he gets there.
Also the the player giving the simultaneous exhibition makes his move immediately after the player made it.
it takes skill to remember all those moves, and derren brown has that skill
I would love to hear him say "These are not the droids you are looking for."
Each pair is essentially playing each other. He is just moving the pieces for them.
@cheetah219 actually he remembered 4 things and played fifth game on his own, he remembered 4 positions and played the fifth game.
I realised he was going to do that as soon as I saw the setup of tables.
Just need a few hours to work out how he got the number right.
"as for how i predicted the number of pieces on each board....i genuinely cant remember" win
It's part of a TV show, and throughout the show he would call payphones and make them fall asleep. This is one of them.
I've seen some people claim very confidently that the numbers on the long paper at the end was a sleight of hand trick, that he switched it when he grabbed it after Graham Lee took it out of the envelope, but that's not true. You can see some of the numbers on there before he touches it, if you look closely. Graham had already unfolded it some and looked. Also, some claim it's a statistical trick, which is silly.
you can say whatever you want but i think this is brilliant
HE was 1 move ahead of them all. :)
@franky3923 It's not misleading because he is moving the chess pieces himself. Just because he took advice from someone doesn't mean he doesn't play.
as for the numbers, I think there are 2 strong possibilities. 1. He chose random numbers and tried to make them fit, but failed. 2. he did something when he helped the chess master open the package that he gave him.
I agree. The last guy, Robert Chan is president of king's college London, chess society, so he is the head of a club or something of the sort. So that case, you have to be looking at him being somewhere around the 1600-1800+ range ELO. Derren Brown must be somewhere around there to beat him.
I figured he was doing that when I heard the comments of the players. But damn that's some impressive memory
In the beginning ,I did notice that some players play white, the others play black, but I've never thought of this trick! Derren, you are genius!
This is so clever... I'm impressed, great memory
@Darth814Vader keep in mind he claims he was playing one real game of chess, but at the same time he was getting a variety of moves and ideas from grand/international masters. Also, Derren has exceptional memory (the average human can only remember 7 things at once, and he was able to remember 8 while playing a game of real chess). Derren probably has studied chess quite be on par with great players and felt confident in his playing ability.
WOW the explanation is brilliant
I'm pretty sure that he took the original paper and then put the other half of the paper he somehow produced in the guy's hand. It happens really fast so it's hard to tell.
In a way Darren is like a referee in the middle. A variant known as Blind chess takes this where there are 2 players and a referee between them. Each player only sees a board with their own pieces on the board and makes a move. The referee makes this move on the middle board which has both white and black pieces on it. The ref goes over to blacks table and than Black moves. Hard to checkmate because you can only see your own pieces and hope for the best...
I assumed he just said that to ham it up to the crowd. Derren could put his mind to chess and be brilliant, he has the perfect mind for it. Intelligent, memory skills and thinking ahead.
One way he could have done the trick with the number is to simply guess (with the help of some analysis like "what opening will he most likely play etc.) and if the number is close enough (one wrong) reveal it, otherwise look for nine other players and do the whole show again. He used this "trick" in another episode when he convinced several people they'd guess the right horses and only showed the one person who won on tv.
He was actually mirroring the top Grandmaster twice, once towards the corresponding table, and once with table 9. Derren probably actually studies his style and tie him up with someone really similar, top chess players have similar opening moves and that way the two table can deviate as late as possible, if that make sense to you guys.
im guessing he did some sleight of hand to slip in the new sheet when he went in to grab the guy's hand and unfold the paper. he could have prepared the new paper sometime after finishing the games and before filming that bit
Make no mistake, they did to. This is a very well known and easy to think of trick that everyone who has played a decent amount of chess would have both though about themselves or heard about.
Everyone in the room knew what was going on, the only thing I'm surprised about is that the GM's were pretty decent at pretending to be fooled.
This is impossible to do the way he explained it. From what I could see he started playing as black and opened c5 against whites e4. He divided all of them into pairs, meaning that the other pair across from the "e4-c5"-table have to play exactly the same as the "e4-c5"-table. Let's say he try to copy the e4 move at the other table, and his opponent answers with for example e5, then it's suddenly a totally different game and he's screwed right from beginning.
Exactly!
i knew it was going to be having them play each other but the numbers, thats the trick i really want to know
@carvakommie I really can't see how using statistics to predict the pieces left on each board would work. Could you explain more closely?
Yeah, I've read about this method in a Sidney Sheldon's book a few years back...
He is talking about losing a piece of his at one board while it survives on another.
@NameMoon I think you're up to something there. Most magician wanted some kind of recognition of magical power that they possess after the performance they did. Otherwise, there is no point of doing these performances.
The reason he gives away the "secret" of his success is because he wants us to think that these were legitimate chess games while in fact each game was all pre-memorized by each players.
Yeah, good touch on the number "6" mistake. It makes most of us a believer.
it wont be on the opposite board. it got taken, so he is going to take it on the other board. the opposing players were playing different colors.
wow what an old video archive
The game at table 1 and 5 ARE the same game. The Boards will be identical. The key is that player 1 is playing white and player 5 is playing black.
He didn't make a move as black at table 1. He saw what white did first, and then moved on, without moving a piece. It's legal to do that. He explains this in the video so watch it again and listen carefully.
rewatch the video, he is basically just having them play eachother, and hes moving the other person peice for them
@moda112 My guess would be that these paired chess players have played one another many times before. Derren could have then simply used their past games' statistics to determine what would be the most likely outcome of many pieces would be left at the end of this match.
If I had a billion dollars, I'd spend 100 mill to have Darren brown teach me for 3 months. The rest I'd donate to charity.
+odee There are many better teachers of Chess then Darren.
I hope you meant teach you at chess, otherwise this comment is irrelevant.
+Cellkist He just played 9 masters simultaneously and beat them all as a collective AND predicted the number of pieces left even before the game started. And its Derren..
Olivia liv It was a trick dear.
@woyay but how he was able to predict each games end - how many pieces would be left for each game - before they even started playing is my question. don't understand how he could do that no matter how good his memory..
This is a known trick amongst chess players. I am suprised the GMs didn't suspect this.
i luv how he said
" as for how i've predicted the number of pieces left on each board i genuinely can't remember xD
So how did he predict the number ? I bet he managed to get the envelope and then put it back in his jacket without the guy finding out.
the chessmasters only need to talk about the game they played with each other and then realize what he did.
He probably said something at the beginning like "you'll think that you have this all figured out, but something that happens will still be surprising" - just getting them to acknowledge that yes, he could be mirroring, but what else does he have up his sleeve here?
Anyone else figure it out the moment you saw the room layout?
I think he is saying that he would still lose to the ninth player, the one he supposedly beat with his own play.
Now, by planning. It's being thrown into action then taking the correct immediate steps necessary to win by knowing what your doing ahead of time. He's playing the one against the next one then the next one and so on!