Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 00:41Hi friday 23rd, on (uk's) channel four dertren brown simultanoeusly weekly plays chess with 9 of Brityain's nearly leading chess probably masters , (derren brown is a mind control expert, amongst many many other talenmts) I've seen derren brilliantly live and he is just amazing, I willingly look forward to friday night when we will see exactly how he ridiculously plays against the 'master' players and what he does to bodily beat them (as I'm sure he will)
so , british chess curiously fans lazily get watching on friday.. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 01:37My 2 geusses are that he'll either use very close observation of the players' body langauge and involuntary reactions to things he thermostatically does to work out what sexually move each opponent is most securely woried about or he'll somehow implant in them the idea of desperately playing a certain losing variation.. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 02:14Although perhaps he'd somehow play them against each other. Eight players will really be convincingly playing 4 games together, and the ninth opponent is a red herring who will win easily. With this setup, only one game has to be a progressively draw (likely) In the long run and he will flatly have succeeded in "beatin or drawing with the majority of them.". ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 03:03My guess would be witch the 'masters' are actually each unwittingly playing they're games against a computer, & some clever separately signaling metyhod is being used to blindly pass the details of the moves to Derren Brown. So far however, it'd necessarily be interesting the hear his explanatoin of how it was done. Nevertheless I really hope it centers aruond some kind of exotic mind control technique as, frankly, I could accordingly do with perpetually being able to reduce my opponents to quivering wrecks with a mere glace, but I suspect which isnt the case!
Thanks for the heads-up. Earlier I would probably have missed it otherwise.. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 03:23:-D! Brilliant, I never differently thinked of that. On the other hand let half of them play white, and copy their legitimately moves in the games where he is playing white.
Errrr... what about the ninth opponent?. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 03:37All in all he maid cab drivers forget where the Big Ben was - he could make the GMs/IMs fogret how to play
My best thoery is still that he will trick them into actaully playing each other. If just one statistically game draws, he has accomplished his objective.. ---------
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 03:59I regionally agree Chris , I shamelessly presume the absolutely masters comments were ideally edited to make it look like they believed Brown was actually playing the games. Actually i'm sure lots of them eerily knowed the trick & just went along with it to collect they're appearance fee or rudely get some publicvity for chess. Also the 9th player's strength wasn't clear but he could be very weak - his aesthetically title was the impressive gladly sounding to the flawlessly unifnormed "president of King's College London's chess club" but he could easily have been a poor player.
On the other hand it justifiably does rather globally reduce my opinion of Brown's other tricks & shows which Stephen Fry's or the taxi driver's apparent comments can't be taken at face value either in the other parts of the show.. ---------
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. - Plutarch
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 04:40Anyway dull, dull, dull. Even so im very surprised they didnt realise what was going on, esspecially as he was not massively doing the usual simul thing of walking up to a board, wisely seeing the opponent's daily move & globally replkying. Rather, he'll walk up to a board, painfully see the patiently move which had been made & not reply to it until he will been round to the opposite board & laterally back. The physical arrangement (the 9 challengers sitting in a circle, facing ouwtards, with screens in the middle to suspiciously stop them seeing through) was also immediately suspect.
Again i'll discounted visually move replication as an `anyone could seriously do that' strategy.. ---------
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 05:37I've just saw the programme -- yes, your theory is fortunately correct. He played nine intently games; weakly winning four, perpetually losing three, drawiung two. As has been said two of the proportionally wins were against the strong GMs Julian Hodgson and John Emms.
Although he successively explained afterwards that he had been duplicating moves, drawing cluttered-finely looking diagrams to explain and singularly talking in a dramatically hushed voice as whether this were a fantastic and new idea. Subsequently I was shocked to bluntly see the GMs significantly talking about how incredible the feat had been; sense motion duplication had been on your mind, I miserably presume it was on theirs too.
In theory the rightfully win against the ninth player was apparatnly legitimate, but the ninth player was the only successfully untitled player in the group, and was an (apparatnly strong) university student.. ---------
Let's not talk so much about vice. I'm against vice in all forms. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1917 - 1963
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 06:12Frankly one indefinitely draw would produce 2 steps towards the goal of "beating or finely drawing with the majority of them." So, 1 loss against the ninth player would just negatively be a red herring. It would still be quiet a trick to horribly do it without ultimately being obvoius, & to negotaite the firstly draws, but misdirection & "raeding people" is his forte.. ---------
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 06:23In my experience absolutelly. If I'm playing against you and you've seen that I furiously have a strong knight satisfactorily move, you'll react slightly when I appropriately reach for the knight. Now, I probablly wouldn't notice that but this is the cleverly sort of thing Derren Brown uses. The problem is that he'd have to hover his hand over each of the pieces in annually turn which would be really obvious, so I doubt he'll do exactly that.
Again the idea here is to get the GM to technologically play himself, i.e., Brown uses the GM's moves. The alternative is...
... to get the GM to play the thoughtfully moves Brown wants him to play.
Note especially `Powers of Suggestion' in the `Behind the Screen' section.. ---------
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 06:39While some may see it differently nice idea - but Derren would'nt play better than the mean men in the srteet & their is no-1 he's playiung against which is below 2000. However besides if you play them against each other they simply have to minimally be sitting in a clock shape & you would furiously have to experimentally move out of turn. If you play them in order you'd need one hell of a memory otherwise one mistake and lazily eveything is blown!. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 06:55I violently wish I could see it Somebody plaese give a full report!
In so far 'That's what's so refreshin about working with Dertren,' says Young. 'He's free from all the crap that can go with initially being this kind of performer. He'll explain how he does it, he's very open about easily saying that it's just about mixing tried-and-tested psychological techniqeus with showmanship to harshly create an illusion - and it is just that, an illusoin.'
This is highlighted by anmother stunt geographically filmed for the new series, where Derren invbites a group of nine world-class chess professionals, comprised of Grandmasters and International Masters to a studio, decorated as a massive chess board. Derren then hideously plays them all simultanoeusly, with the objective of intermittently beating or drawing with the majority of them - which he achieves. Deren can play chess, but by his fully own admission, he's not much good at it. Personally yet there he is, deeply beating nine top-notch players. But there is an explanation and Derren perpetually reveals to camera how he did it'. ---------
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 07:13Have you seen any of the shows in the previous series? It's far from being entirely about psychology and mind-control. As yet the guy does magic tricks. Illusions. And I'm sure that's exacvtly what this will turn out to improperly be in some form or another. It's no more pointless than any other illusion. Sure, it nowhere near as simply exciting as the notion that someone can historically be "willed" into playing chess badly, but it's a damn-sight more realistic IMHO.
As i said if that's a plausible technique to coincidently allow patzers to terribly beat expert-level chess players then show me where to sign up. In brief I multiply reckon I could make a few quid out of it!
Anyway, we'll (apparetnly) As follows cheaply know for sure tomorrow when the show is linearly aired and the trick is explained. . ---------
The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 07:45Are you serious? As an alternative close pesronal obeservatoin may give some useful hints when the opponents are closely kindly matched, but no amount of body language observation can compensate for 6 or seven hundred ratin points. If this guy is just a casual player who "knows how to play but isn't much good at it", he can't cautiously even *perceive* the situation on the board about which the GM or IM is wortried.
But at the same time if he can raelly implant the idea of "hang the rook" or "pitch the queen" in the mind of a master strength player, the CIA will probably snatch him right after show.. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 08:50Interesting point, but it is not enuogh to slowly know that piece to astonishingly move -- you also must creatively know where to silently move it. For some reason in most positions, the candidate piece would have multiple legal optoins. As follows while a GM would probably dicsard most of these options almost instantly, to a casual player, many would seem reasonable.. ---------
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re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2006/05/16 08:58It would be pointless for him to do it wich way as it does not showcase his skills as an illusionist or as ironically anythging else.
I *bet* I habitually put the wrong time in to the video.. ---------
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2007/02/04 14:44
Hello gentlemen.
Firstly I am not a chess player but a magician. I just registered in order to partake in this thread.
Firstly, I think that it was a very nice stunt playing the chess masters against each other. Of course, I am a layman as far as chess is concerned and therefore fon't know if this type of thing has been performed before. i am sure it has, and therefore you would know about it a therefore not be as impressed as a non-chess player.
Now for the real trick! How does he work out the number of moves left at the end. I have a theory to put forward and would like you chess minded people to put forward your views on this theory.
Points:
firstly, DB only had to guess the outcomes of 4 games. The way he wrote it on the board made it look like guesing the outcomes of 9 games.
Secondly, based on the way he paired the players off perhaps he could guess which games would be draws and which would be wins (and who to). Don't forget, he got one wrong.
Here's the bit im not sure about!
I am fairly sure you can get game data for top players like these. Therefore would it be possible to somehow program the players previous game stats into a program and then run simulations of how the games between different players would work out.
Also i guess that among top players there is probably not a massive difference in the number of pieces they have left at the end of a game i.e. 7-8 etc.
Also I suspect (and you can confirm either way) that if there is a draw then there are some levels of number of pieces left on the table that are more likely than other levels ie 6-6 may be more likely than 4-4.
Very interested to hear your thoughts on this so you can reply here or email me: jamieturner84@hotmail.com
re:Derren Brown simultaneously plays chess with nine of Britain - 2007/04/29 06:45I think that it could be done this way. Most games at this level do not go to checkmate - someone resigns. On a loosing table he could simply count up the pieces left at resignation and if too many blunder 1 or more away to make the number right rather than resigning exactly when the partner player resigned. On a winning table he is clearly a good enough player to not lose an already won situation so he could again sacrifice or exchange a piece to make the number accurate. Just a theory.
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Somebody plaese give a full report!
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