Would it be feasible for the chess guy in the credits to have coached Derren to a level where he had a fighting chance of beating player 9 on his own merits? How long would that take?
I don’t think you can draw a meaningful rating for a player from one game. It’s possible that he simply played well above his ability for a game.
It just seems so amatuerish to be getting the moves from someone else.
You could indeed be correct, as nobody checked (chess joke!) Derren closely. I suppose the fact that he referred to the lack of an earpiece meant we were lulled into a false sense of security.
To be sure of beating an 1800 player, you need to be at least 2200 yourself.
It took me 6 years to make 2200, and I played a lot of chess in that time. Most of the juniors I coach who make 2200 take about 10 years.
I can’t believe anyone would spend 6-10 years working hard in secret just to surprise people with a one-off stunt (that could be done another way).
There’s also the point that chess players enjoy gossip. If someone was coaching a TV personality, they’d love to blab. (When a mate of mine was hired by a film director, he was straight on the phone!)
I believe glee was referring to that game only.
(and)
It was a magic trick, not a chess exposition.
I realise I’m being bold in my claim. However I have played and annotated games on the SDMB to show I’m good at chess.
I would still say that watching one full game would allow me to estimate whether a player was:
- a complete beginner
- a weak club player
- a strong club player
- a national strength player
- an international player.
In a typical chess position, there are about 30 legal moves. A 2200 will consider only 2-3 of these (and may choose purely on style). Once you factor in a plan that may last 5-6 moves (requiring precise choices each time) I think it is impossible to play too far above your ability.
More so than the other eight games where he was getting the moves from someone else? It’d be highly unprofessional for a professional chess player, but this fellow isn’t a professional chess player, he’s a professional magician. Different standards apply.
If there were four cameras used, then it couldn’t have all been done in one take, since there’d be a discontinuity whenever they changed cameras (unless they did a split-screen to show everything from every camera at once). Whether Brown took advantage of these camera changes, I don’t know.
I’ll take glee’s professional word that Brown displayed a 2200 level of skill, and that his opponent didn’t make any clear blunders. So that probably rules out the possibility that the ninth player himself was a stooge. Nor can we assume that Brown just had an unusually good day: He knew that he’d come out exactly even in the other 8 games, so he had to be certain, a priori, of beating the ninth guy (a magician losing a set of simultaneous games wouldn’t impress anyone, even if he did come close to even). Coupled with the fact that there was a known chess player credited, it’s probably safe to assume that they knew their “pocket expert” (who may also have had computer help, of course) was sufficiently better than the ninth player to be sure of winning. The question then just becomes how the expert communicated to Brown. But there’s scads of possibilities, there, including some which would be undetectable to anyone present or watching on TV. It’s impossible to say precisely which one he used.
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I’ll take glee’s professional word that Brown displayed a 2200 level of skill, and that his opponent didn’t make any clear blunders. So that probably rules out the possibility that the ninth player himself was a stooge.
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Not necessarily. He and the stooge could have memorized a particular game (originally played by the 2200 expert), and just replayed it.
I did mention this earlier. It would be quite a lot for Derren to remember, alongside everything else he was doing.
Also there were experienced players present, who might recognise the game :eek: if it had been played before (it was definitely publishable).
Let me try to clear up some slight confusion here. When glee said it was ‘a single take’ he meant that it was all taped in real-time, from start to finish, and that Derren wasn’t given the luxury of being able to go back over anything or do any re-takes. The event was covered by four cameras, as glee says. The tapes from all four cameras were then taken back to the production facility and edited to create the sequence as broadcast, which lasted 5 or 6 minutes.
My claim to fame: I once played Deren Brown three times at chess, at his old flat in Bristol. I won all three games!
It’s not actually much of a claim. As Derren admits, and admitted in the TV sequence referred to here, he’s hopeless at chess. I’m not much better, but I didn’t need to be. And anyway the concentration level wasn’t that high - we were working our way through a fine bottle of Scotch at the time.
Sorry if I didn’t explain it very well.
After explaining briefly to the players, all 4 cameras were switched on and Derren did the whole chess display continuously, until all games were finished. That’s what I meant by ‘one take’. The full 3 hours was then edited down to about 20 minutes, leaving time for the envelope switch and some player comments.
Thanks for the explanation of “copying opponent’s moves.”
I feel obliged to curse the OP for directing me to the link, because I then proceeded to spend a couple hours YouTubing all of Darren Brown’s tricks.
Fun stuff.
I don’t know much about chess but I think I understand this–this implies that 4 of the boards are exactly duplicates of the other 4 boards at any given time? Wouldn’t an astute observer notice this?
I’m no magician but from what I’ve read and seen and had explained to me, a surprising amount of stage magic relies on the big lie method. Just shamelessly “cheating” in ways so blatant that most of us don’t think that is how it would be done because we don’t think the magician would do anything that obvious.
Ianzin could no doubt comment with more authority.
Princhester: I think you’re very right about that. I recall seeing one magician showing how he did a parlor trick. It works in a parlor because it’s not a big room like a theater is. He took a volunteer from the audience and made tissues “disappear.” The volunteer was flabbergasted. Everyone else thought it was hilarious because they saw the magician throwing the balled-up tissues over the volunteer’s head.
“Shamelessly cheating” is an apt description.
Yeah I did too. Its great. I have a suspicion though, that he sometimes swaps the order of recording. So that we as viewers do not see the timeline of the events in the proper order. Which I think is as ruining to the show as would be using stooges.
I don’t think that is so difficult. He only has to remember around four moves. They are placed in a context that helps you remember them. And he can even go back and look. Memorising a game could be done within half an hour.
Maybe the advisory chess player played a private game with the 9th player on beforehand which they agreed not to make public. And they then used that.
That said, I think its annoying if this is the trick. If people in his clips can be actors, then its not much fun for me to watch.
I wondered that myself (and felt a bit sorry for the guy who lost not because he was playing against a grandmaster but against a self confessed rubbish player 
)
The book “If Tomorrow Comes” by Sidney Sheldon describes a scenario where a conman “beats” (or rather, draws with) two chess masters simulaneously by playing their moves against each other.
Yes indeed, which is why the boards were arranged facing outwards in a circle, with a studio display prop blocking any player looking behind him. And the camera shots never showed any of the related boards together either.
I hope it won’t upset anybody if I reveal that the chess players were certain beforehand there were only 3 ways to do this feat:
-
play mirror chess on 8 boards (guaranteeing 4-4) and beat the weakest player somehow
-
hire Kasparov to play (he’s beaten 6 players of Grandmaster strength simultaneously). Mind you, he’s not cheap!
-
bribe the players
The mirror chess is easy to spot if you know how it works.
In a regular chess simultaneous, each player makes a move and the person doing the display moves immediately. You can also see every board.
In mirror chess, the players move, then the person walks away and comes back with a reply. The boards are concealed.
So the players knew what was happening before they even sat down (as I mentioned earlier, one player even knew who his opponent was by move 2!). But it was expertly done, they were going to be on TV 
and it was great publicity for chess.
So they just played chess.
And nobody knows how Derren beat the ninth player 
.