CHESS
c>01:0©40 SPAIN'S FINES! CAVA
SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA
Memory Lane
Raymond Keene
GARRY KASPAROV often states that the most important skill for top-class chess is a powerful memory. Last weekend I was invited to officiate as chairman of the arbitrating panel at the 2nd World Memory Championship held at Simpson's-in-the- Strand. I witnessed there some extraordin- ary feats of memory. The ultimate victor was Dominic O'Brien, the defending champion, who has recently published a book on developing a perfect memory. His astounding achievements over the weekend included perfect recall of eight packs of playing cards (416 separate cards) in just one hour. Five years ago the world record was six packs in five hours with two errors permitted. O'Brien, banned from casinos for obvious reasons, obliterated this record.
It was on the afternoon of the first day that I witnessed the most staggering mem- ory performance I have ever seen. O'Brien's feat consisted of perfect recall of 100 separate digits read out at two second intervals. There was no visual aid to assist in recall, such as time to write notes, yet O'Brien memorised perfectly not just one 100-number sequence, but two. Try this at home with a friend reading out the num- bers and see how far you get. To my mind this even rivals some of Kasparov's most impressive exploits on the chessboard as a demonstration of mental powers. O'Brien then went on to astound his supporters further by taking a mere half-hour to memorise perfectly 1002 binary digits, to the casual observer a meaningless page of ones and zeros.
Chessplayers have to memorise immense sequences of opening theory involving jungles of tangled sub-variations. At least, when memorising binary digits one knows that the battlefield consists of zeros and ones. In chess one may be a memory expert in the Sicilian Defence (1 e4 c5) and yet have all one's opponents in a tourna- ment play 1 d4 against you. I tend to agree, therefore, with Kasparov's sentiment that what distinguishes the men from the boys in modern top-class chess is a vast memo- rised arsenal of opening variations in a wide variety of differing systems. The following game from this year's British Championship at Dundee, where Henni- gan was the surprise leader at the halfway stage, is a case in point.
Emms – Hennigan: British Championship 1993; Sicilian Defence.
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 d6 6 Bc4 e6 7 Be3 Bel 8 Qe2 a6 9 0-0-0 Qc7 10 Bb3
Position after 16 115 Nay 11 g4 b5 12 g5 Nxb3+ 13 axb3 Nd7 14 h4 b4 15 Na4 Nc5 16 h5 (Diagram) All these moves have, in fact, been played before in a master game. However, this particular variation of the Sicilian Defence, with White castling on the queenside and Black leaving his king in the centre, is one of the most complicated. Just imagine the myriad alternatives which have been charted up to this point. 16 . . . Nxe4 This varies from and improves on a previous game which had gone 16 . . . Bd7 17 g6 Bxa4 18 bxa4 Bf6 19 gxf7+ Qxf7 20 Qg4 0-0 21 b3 Rac8 22 Kbl (Schlosser — Jasnikowski, Thessaloniki Olym- piad 1988). Hennigan had to retain all this in his personal memory banks, as well as being aware of the possible improvement. 17 g6 Bf6 18 gyit7+ Kxf7 19 Rhgl e5 20 Nf3 Bf5 21 Kbl Rab8 22 Nd2 Nxd2+ 23 Rxd2 Rhc8 24 f4 Rb5 25 Qf2 exf4 26
Position after 27 . . . Qxc2+
Bxf4 Qc6 27 Bg5 Qxc2+ (Diagram) White cannot now play 28 Ka2 because of 28 . . . Qxb3+ 29 Kxb3 Be6+ trapping White's king. 28 Rxc2 Rxc2 29 QxfS RxfS 30 Bxf6 Rcf2 31 Bd8 Rfl+ 32 Ref Rxfl+ 33 Kc2 Rhl The smoke has cleared. Black's rook and kingside pawns will easily overpower White's bishop and knight. 34 Ba5 RxhS 35 Bxb4 Ke6 36 Bd2 g5 37 Nc3 g4 38 Kd3 Rh2 39 Ke3 h5 40 Ne4 d5 41 Nc5+ Kf5 42 Bc3 h4 43 Nd3 Rh3+ White resigns 44 . . Rxd3 and . . . h3 will queen a pawn.
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