Look at a position, then put it back from memory.
Position Recall
Position Recall trains your memory for where pieces stand. A position is shown for six seconds and then cleared. Put every piece back on its square from memory and press Check. A perfect answer brings a position with one piece more, starting from four. Your score is the largest position you rebuilt without a mistake.
How to play
- Press Start and study the position. The board is cleared after six seconds.
- Choose a piece from the tray and tap the square it stood on. Tap the same piece on its square again to take it off.
- Press Check. Right squares turn green, wrong and forgotten ones red. A perfect board earns a harder one; a mistake starts again at four pieces.
Questions
- How do strong players remember positions?
- They see groups, not single pieces: a castled king with its pawns, a pair of rooks on a file. Studies of chess memory have found that masters recall positions from real games far better than beginners do, and much less so when the pieces are placed at random.
- Are these positions from real games?
- No. The pieces are placed at random, which is harder to remember than a position from a game because there are no familiar groups to hold on to.
- What counts as a mistake?
- A piece on the wrong square, the wrong piece on a square, or a piece left off the board.