Magnus Carlsen's Mind-Blowing Memory! World Chess Champion tested 

Sometimes when I take a shower, I can't remember if I shampooed my hair yet.

"This is a game from the World Championships in 2045." "That game hasn't been played yet." "Time is not a straight line."

If a FICTIONAL movie character had this kind of memory, I'd call it unrealistic. This is insane

Magnus: has a photographic memory Me: needs to take a photograph to remember where I parked my car

Carlsen never rents a movie twice, he just grabs popcorn and close his eyes

two moves into a petroff: it must be anand

The one I found most interesting was how he recognized the position from the Harry Potter film. Unlike the others, this isn't one he would have encountered in the course of his professional study. But that he remembered it just shows that he must completely remember every chess position he's ever seen, whether "real" or not.

One of the interesting things about Chess is that the current best player in the world is almost always the best player of all time. This is because the current players are not only playing with their skills, but also their memories of older games and historical players. As time moves ahead, the players themselves become better and better than their predecessors by remembering and improvising on their predecessors' games.

Magnus is the kind of guy that never forgets why he came into a room

"This is the 24th game from Seville, obviously." Obviously.

Its not just the memory that is astonishing, its the obsession to watch and learn every single game in history of chess to become better that only a world champion can possess

He ironically tweeted “They know it’s my job right?” as if its okay to have a brain like an engine.

I would have thought this was unrealistic if I saw a character do this in a chess movie/show.

You can tell this level of recollection is completely effortless for him, he recognizes the position and the time he first came across it almost instantly. His memory really is superhuman, I wonder if anyone's ever studied him to see what his limits are. We saw that he's also naturally god tier on games like geo-guesser as well.

Imagine him being a witness in court

Magnus once played ten lawyers at Harvard simultaneously, blindfolded. After the match he was talking to one of the attorneys, who said he regretted not taking notes of the moves, now being unable to show his game to his friends at the bar and the library. Magnus then proceeded to tell the guy all the moves that were made in their game

I love how David is so humble while being a fabulous chess player himself. He’s also very insightful in his chess match commentary

Howel touches a pawn. Carlsen: It's definitely Anand.

Magnus watches 4 chess moves: Knows time, place and players involved. Me watches 4 chess moves: Can't remember whose turn it is next.

It’s crazy how many different topics of things people are into, to this depth. You have chemists who can look at a reaction and name it out of what seems like no where but they just clearly have dedicated their lives to knowing a lot. And on the opposite side of the spectrum you have people like this who love Chess so much they read books about historic game boards and can literally name them? People are amazing.

He is truly one of a kind - an absolute master of his craft. Genius.

1. e4 Carlsen: "Fischer-Spassky 1972. Fischer was wearing a beige shirt. He had 3 eggs for breakfast, wheat toast and a glass of apple juice. He sneezed 4 times on the drive to the game."

This man is unbelievable.

It's pretty amazing that a prodigy of his level grew up this charismatic

2:50 "19 years ago and you still remember the game NEXT to you" lol

Absolutely astounding! I can't even comprehend being able to do this. Excellent!!!

When Magnus walks into a room, the room forgets why he walked in there.

“I’m going to show you some historical chess positions…” Magnus: “It’s Anand.” “I haven’t set up the board yet.” Magnus: “…” “You’re right.”

Magnus Carlson might have more chess games memorized then I have memories

This is a great example of what it actually takes to be great at chess.

What an amazing down to Earth person, insanely intelligent, sociable, he is a role model for many youth. Keep doing what you do best Magnus!

Magnus is the only guy to out-remember his wife during an argument.

David Howell is a Grandmaster top 200 player himself, and is blown away by Carlsen's memory.. just let that sink in

Having this kind of memory must be absolutely agonizing when it comes to remembering your own losses at high stakes. Would keep me up at night.

This is incredible! A living genius amongst us today

Nobody’s gonna know how lil Timmy got those likes yikesss

His brain has been literally built around processing a chess board since his childhood.

so humble we do not even realize how great he is.

19 Years and he still remember it. i even forgot, where my remote after change my position while watching TV

this Guy probaply remebers what his mother ate every day when she was pregnant with him

I cant remember one entire game to save my life

I think magnus is a hardworker because he analyse everygame. His knowledge about each game is amazing.

Aside from the unbelieveble memory he has, Magnus has developed his social skills remarkably well.

"When Howell brought back memories of me finishing behind Nepo 19 years ago I started to take the World championship-game in november personally"

“They played the scandi in harry potter”… dude how tf

I remember the post game 6 press conference when Magnus was told it was the longest game in WC history and he names the game and starts reciting a line. This after he just played a brutal 8 hour game himself.

Magnus Carlsen is the real source for Agadmator when he says "and it was at this position we have completely new game".

This guy deserves his title.

Capablanca was also renowned for this. He could remember every game he played, even the casual ones.

0:35 Well, it must be a hella famous game that every chess fan have studied (just like most other games that are going to be shown here). It's like showing a football super fan a legendary world cup, Brazil x Italy or something. I think he is not simply remembering the moves, even if he thinks he is, what he's actually doing is analyzing the position and seeing the proper move. But that doesn't explain why he remembers the players and the game, so is a mix of both, a deep seeded analytical skill together with strong emotions and facts about those games players and events all in an intricate spider web of neurological connection. 0:40 I think he's shocked because he doesn't understand how chess player training works, Josh Waitzskin said that since he was a kid he spend hours watching great games with his teacher and studying positions. I hope Magnus tell them that. 1:38 Okay, but this part is nuts, i don't know how he did that. It looks like an ordinary opening for me. 3:13 SEEEEEEE!!!!! Those games were connected by a web of relevance. Was a nice trick to put that. 3:20 OOOOOOHHHHH C'MOM!!!!!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!

Magnus is the type of guy who’s computer saves files on his mind.

The fact he doesn't remember the exact year with certainty, but is always right in his "guesses" shows he didn't even memorize all this stuff on purpose (which would already be hella impressive), he just studied/played/watched these games and simply knows them. I can't find words to describe how incredible this is.

Actually the most impress for me is the "is it from a bullet game I played?" Wich could have flashed to a similar position, or if it was online, someone could have tried those moves against him just for fun... on a totally casual random match. Does he forget any game that he ever saw in his life??

Incredible. If you pick up the pieces, I can't even put them back where they were from memory.

Haters: He's clearly cheating by memorizing every match ever played.

You know you love chess when you remember the moves from a random Harry Potter movie that’s insane.

Mind-blowing!!! I remember maybe 15-20 positions from games.

I feel like David Howell is in love with Magnus, seriously the he smiles and his gestures

For us, it's just a few pieces of chess randomly arranged but for Magnus, it's like showing a footballer a photograph of a certain iconic moment of a historic football game.

Imagine him forgetting his girlfriend's birthday. Good luck apologising for that.

They did a memory test on the world's best chess players. They showed them a board very briefly and then asked them to reconstruct it. Then they created some impossible positions and they were quite bad at it. It tells you a lot about how memory works, since they clearly aren't seeing where all the pieces are. They are seeing most of them and then rebuilding the rest. It's the same reason that eye witnesses are so unreliable. We see what we expect.

Carlsen's one of those players you'd love to see against history's greats.

4 moves in, “Yea thats Anand vs Zapata 1984.” Jokes on you, that was P*zzycrusher1245 vs Redleafotato24 on Lichess in 2019z

Magnus just watches movies for the chess scenes. Really.

This is extraordinary, but still it needs to be put in context I think. I have a couple of fantasy-fooball (soccer for americans 😆) friends that are absolutely addicted with the sport, and they could tell you about any game in the last 50 years, including and not limited to the final result, the competition they were played in, the year, the formations, who scored and at what minute. When you are passionate about something it becomes easier to remember things, especially if you need it for something like your job or just for fun. But still, this is impressive because chess is so much more complicated and gives away much less informations at first glance.

I wonder how much of this is actual memory, and how much of it is simply having such an intimate understanding of Chess and how it's played that you can reason out what the moves most likely were based on which moves make the most sense to make.

David looks so happy when Magnus remembers his game against him lol

moves a pawn and a knight Magnus: “it’s gonna be Anand” 😭

Awesome video. Music is a little loud though. Sometimes straining to hear what they are saying. I'd say add subtitles but then it kinda covers the chessboard.

Sometimes Magnus can forget how good he actually is at remembering everything.

I’ve seen him do this before, his memory is ridiculous. To have analyzed as many games as he has and to be able to remember a game by position on board is just incredible.

He recognised the Anand - Zapata game with just two moves?😲 How's that even possible, I mean there are thousands of games in that opening and he picked the perfect one, wow

That is absolutely remarkable 👏 bravo Magnus

I wonder how he would perform in regular memory testing tasks... Or what he could do if he learnt to solve the Rubik's cube and then put his effort into multi-blind solving. Current world record is 59 cubes solved correctly out of 60 memorized within the 60 minutes time limit.

You can argue that it's his job to know the famous games as he needed to study them when learning. But remembering that 19 years ago (at a youth tournament that would not be that notable given his current position) he had that position against Howell AND the more staggering point of remembering Ian's specific opening and exact mistake at that same round is just something else

I love the small detail at 3:14 where the camera very subtly follows Carlsen's gaze.

That's why he's Number 1 in the world!! Just brilliant

I’ve always heard that people who are this good at chess could literally be exceptional at anything.

What fascinates me is that he has a book on Kasparov - Karpov games at his bedside after all these years. The guy just eats, sleeps and breaths chess.

What is even more mind-blowing is that he stays this sexy year around.

Lol he not only remembered his 20 year old game but he also remembers the board beside him where young nepo was playing. I am guessing he has special technique to remember these games. Something along the lines of, key moments of that game and then recall how they reached that position.

I have perfect memory. I woke up one day and I remembered everything. Not for a split second but I stayed remembered 50 years

Netflix should do a series on Magnus called the "Kings Gambit" The continuation of the Queens Gambit😅

Remembering the position is one thing, associating it with real-life competition and persons is incredibly impressive

His mother: I went through 5 hours of labor to deliver you and you can't even do this one favor for me?!? Magnus: Actually, it only took you 45 minutes. 20 minutes of that was the ride to get you to the hospital. I remember feeling sick because the road was bumpy. I also remember the doctor telling you how lucky you were for having a delivery that was so quick, they didn't even deem the epidural to be necessary. I still have chills thinking about the drastic contrast in temperature from your womb to the delivery room. Btw, you're the reason I hate hot peppers. You never stopped eating them while I was in there and it kept giving me heartburn!

Dude, this is pretty insane... I know GMs study hella matches, but this is still super impressive

I can literally not memorize two opening lines for about 4 moves. His brain is the complete Databank of a chess program!

19 years ago Nepo was beating an Indonesian player who was up a pawn Magnus: And I took that personally

In the past, as a golfer, I might play two rounds in a day. At lunch, after the first round, I could sit there and tell you every single shot I made, what club I used, how big the divots were, whether I drew, faded or hit a straight shot. There was nothing I didn't know about that round of golf. However, once I played the afternoon round I would need to look at the previous scorecard to remember how many I shot in the morning, nevermind the details, whilst at the same time being able to tell you every single detail about the afternoon game. My memory was just as good as Magnus' memory except for the fact that Magnus is able to remember game after game with incredible accuracy whilst I only had a detailed memory of my last game. This is what makes him a champion while the rest of us are just good players.

This is obviously a curse for him too since he remembers every single bad thing exactly as it happened in his life which is a tough mental battle when feeling down. I feel for him.

He even remember the Harry potter chess set...hahaha..so crazy

This is one of most insane things I’ve seen.

The one at 1:40 is absurd, because so many games have that opening

How exactly did Magnus recognize Zapata-Anand (1:35), having only seen two moves? It’s just Petrov’s Defence. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 It’s simply not enough information to tell the exact game yet, no matter how profound your knowledge is. There’s tons of games starting like this in tournament practice.

He recognized Zapata - Anand Game in 2 moves. Besides having a great memory he is also a great mind reader. Korchnoi pointed out that Petrosian and Spassky were amazing MIND READERS

He played a blind chess game against 10 opponents and won them all. After the game a German fan told him he was sad that they didn't write down all the moves as he would have liked studying them. Magnus then sat down and wrote all ten games down for him.

magnus actually have photographic memory..the ability can recall anything past..thats how he becoming super gm and world champion.. by natural talent

This video clip reminds me of what the Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose once wrote in a book review: "This could happen in real life, but in a novel it becomes too unrealistic".

Normal person: I need to buy hard disk to store data. Carlsen: Well i store it in my main memory.

How is this possible, i mean just how! Nothing but genius to even know what was the next move played. Just love Magnus.