Memory Chess

Memory Chess is a free chess memory game and chess memory trainer that runs in a browser on desktop and mobile. It is designed for anyone who wants to practise holding a chess position in their head, from beginners who do not know openings to chess masters. In each round, you study a position for a few seconds, the board goes blank, and you rebuild the position from memory. The round ends with an accuracy reading from 0 to 100% and a map showing every square you got right or wrong. The site says it has hosted 48,697 games played, offers a 1–60s study window, uses 2–32 pieces per round, and is available in 24 languages. The product’s premise is that most chess practice trains decisions, while very little of it checks whether you can actually hold the board in your head. The site says this skill sits under calculation, blindfold play and spotting tactics, and is usually left to chance. It describes a common failure: players lose track of pieces mid-calculation, so that three moves deep a bishop on the long diagonal quietly disappears from the picture in their head. The board in front of them was right; the one in their mind was not. Memory Chess frames board recall as a trainable, testable skill: hold a position briefly, rebuild it, check the result, and repeat with more pieces and less time. The site explicitly says it makes no claims about your brain; it gives you a reading you can track. The core round is deliberately simple. You choose how many pieces you want and how long you want to study the board; the site supports 2–32 pieces and a 1–60s study window. When the position disappears, the board clears and you place the pieces back on the squares you remember. You submit your answer to see your accuracy and time. The site notes that placing more pieces than the position had lowers your accuracy, so you should only place what you remember. Each round is a short memory test with an accuracy reading from 0 to 100% and a map of every square you got right or wrong. Rounds take under a minute, so you can run many. A calibration reading is offered as a starting point. The Medium round uses 6 pieces, two kings among them, and 10 seconds of exposure; then the board clears and you rebuild it. You get a readout card with your accuracy and recall by piece type, and the readout card shows correct squares, rebuild time, wrong pieces, exposure, and recall by piece type after your first run. A suggested difficulty appears after the reading. The calibration works with mouse, touch and keyboard. The site describes the flow: press start, study the position until the meter empties, pick a piece from the palette, tap a square, tap a placed piece to remove it, and submit. Difficulty is organised into four presets and one custom rig. Easy uses 2 pieces and 10 seconds and is described as just kings, perfect for starting out. Medium uses 6 pieces and 10 seconds, described as a few pieces with comfortable time to memorize. Hard uses 12 pieces and 8 seconds, described as more pieces with less time to memorize. Grandmaster uses 20 pieces and 5 seconds and is described as being for chess masters with photographic memory. The CustomRig lets you set your own variables to isolate one weakness, with 2–32 pieces and 1–60s exposure. The site advises moving up a tier when your readings hold steady, not after one lucky round. The site also walks through a round under the microscope using the final position of Kasparov’s Immortal, after 44.Qa7. Phase 1 is Study: eleven pieces, ten seconds, and the advice to take in the whole board, not square by square. Phase 2 is Anchors: start with the kings, fix two points first, and place everything else relative to them. Phase 3 is Chunk: group pieces by what they do to each other, such as the kings fighting over d2, two pawn staircases, and the queen and rook each aiming at an unguarded h-pawn. Phase 4 is Encode: turn each group into a sentence, naming it by its job: Stand-off, Stairs, and Long shots. Phase 5 is Blank: the board clears with no pieces and no hints, and you rebuild from the sentences, not from a picture. Phase 6 is Rebuild: rebuild group by group, placing each group with its sentence before starting the next. Phase 7 is Score: re-check each relation on the rebuilt board, then score; the example shows 10 of 11 squares is 91%. The site says the overlays show one way to memorise it, not a recording of anyone’s attention. It also references de Groot’s experiments, Chase and Simon (1973), and Gobet and Simon (1996) in explaining anchors and chunking. The dashboard, called the lab record, is built around the idea that one reading is a snapshot while ten readings are a measurement. Every round you play is kept on the device, and the panels fill in from your own rounds. Before your first round, panels show sample values, not real players; after it, a panel that cannot read your record yet says what it still needs. The figures include memory span, pieces held, accuracy over time, recall pace, today’s board, days in a row, a forgetting curve, a lab notebook, a miss map, recall by piece type, insights, programs, a goal, personal bests, and a leaderboard. Some figures unlock only after enough rounds or sightings, such as memory span at two rounds at 80%+ with 3+ pieces, pieces held at five rounds over two days, and recall by piece type at twenty sightings of a non-king piece. The daily board is one board a day, the same for everyone. A new position opens every day at midnight UTC; everyone gets the same board and study time, and you get one try. The streak counts any finished round, game or practice, for its day, and one missed day in any seven is forgiven. For forgetting, boards you score under 80% on come back for review 1, 3, 7 and 14 days after you first see them, and the curve plots how much you recall at each gap. Programs include Baseline week, a 7-day plan with one Medium round a day, logging the reading, and comparing day 7 against day 1; Edge-file drill, a 14-day plan with a custom rig of 8 pieces and 15 seconds, reviewing the miss map every 3 days and pairing with the board vision guide; and Step-down ladder, an open-ended plan that has you hold 90% for three rounds in a row, then cut study time by 2 seconds, and when study time bottoms out, add pieces. The leaderboard compares readings worldwide or in your country. Each difficulty is ranked by correct pieces, then fewer wrong pieces, then faster memorize time, then faster solve time, and every row shows the player’s country. You submit a score from the result screen, then check where it stands. A goal lets you pick a piece count and an accuracy; the bar fills from your best round at that count or more since you set the goal. Personal bests are kept per setting because 6 pieces and 20 pieces are different tests, and practice readings on the page stay apart from games. Memory Chess is free, with no account and no server. Your lab record is kept on this device; you can download a copy to move it to another browser or to keep it safe, and the site lists import and Back up across devices (coming soon). Adding a name to the leaderboard is optional. The site is available in 24 languages, and Product Hunt notes that version 2.0 includes a redesign in 24 languages, a daily board everyone plays once, a skill rating that moves both ways, a dashboard of memory span and progress, and shareable round replays. Product Hunt also points players to a Telegram group at t.me/TheMemoryChess to swap scores. A reference library, called the Learning Center, pairs short guides with drills so each reading points to something you can practise. The listed guides cover board vision (seeing the whole board at once instead of one corner at a time), visualization (holding a moving position in your head as pieces shift), calculation (looking further ahead without losing track of the board), memory (chunking and pattern techniques that raise your readings), and blindfold chess training (a four-stage plan from board recall to full blindfold games). There is also a browse chess guides entry and a guide on how to stop blundering. The FAQ says beginners can play because you do not need to know chess openings or calculate moves; start with fewer pieces and more study time, then make the game harder when ready. For memorizing, it suggests starting with anchors such as kings, queens, corners, and edge squares, then looking for groups, lines, diagonals, and empty spaces instead of trying to remember every piece on its own. To make the game harder, add more pieces, shorten study time, or hide board coordinates, changing one setting at a time.