derren brown ftw i recommend getting a hold of all his uk shows and videos if anyones interested in this little bit.. some of his sketches are clean and true, but some seem a little "off", like fake.. i dunno.
Isn't this the retard who played russian roullette with himself in a barn? Guy is crazy, looked like he was going to shit his pants at the end of that one
He was playing chess though, presumably the whole time I thought it was a brilliant tactic. I would've never thought of it.
Doesn't seem legitimate. That would only work if every move in response to the first was identical by the different ppl. Probability would say that atleast one move by Brown's opponent would be different from one of the other opponents he was mirroring. Right?
Once they get that good, it seems like it's more of a science than an actual game. I'm sure they do the almost exact same thing every time.
Try to simplify it down to only 4 players. Pair up players 1 and 3, and 2 and 4. Let players 1 and 2 be black, 3 and 4 be white. So, players 1 and 2 make the first move on their boards. When you get to boards 3 and 4, you make the first move... simply doing the same move that player 1 and 2 did. BUT you have to wait around at the board until the player opposite you make a move. Simply memorize, and repeat repeat repeat.
True. My cousin used to play and beat folks who were nationally ranked, and I could beat him. Used to play some engineers at work and they stopped because I was kicking their ass! Anyway, to your point there are very standard responses to every type of move or series of moves, so it becomes very repetitive after a while. It's basically a game of being able to plan / predict moves as far into the future as possible. I could easily play 4-5 moves ahead, particularly if I knew the player. But a grandmaster could probably do double that. Still have no idea how he predicted (or appeared to predict) the exact number of pieces remaining in each game.
I understand that he is just copying their moves. But what I'm saying is that all it would take is for one of the players to react differently to his copied-move to ruin the whole system.
Impossible. He was just mirroring their moves, so there's no way anyone could "ruin" it. Two sets of four were playing each other, so guaranteed he would appear to win four of the games. It was the all important 9th game that tipped the scale, hence they selected a less experienced player in that position that he could beat. I would feel like a total chump if I was that guy.
Think of it like him matching them up against each other. Instead of them playing head to head, he is the middle man relaying the moves to each person. It is a simple memory exorcize.
