Memory freak!

[aussiecounter]

Bugger the Rain Man, this guy would make an awesome counter/ace tracker etc.

I was wasting some time the other day reading stuff on the Guiness World Records site, when a record for Most Cards Memorized caught my attention.

Dominic O'Brien supposedly memorized a full 54 decks, no not 54 cards, 54 decks or 2808 cards. Viewing the cards only once, it took him 11 hours 42 minutes to memorize the 54 decks, then 3 hours 30 minutes to recite them exactly. He made a total of eight errors, which included four mistakes and four prompted corrections.

Now I know people will say "You don't need to be the Rain Man to count cards", but imagine what this guy could do!
If he can remembrer 54 decks, surely he'd have no trouble remembering one or two decks, say, while sitting in a casino playing blackjack?
Playing single or double deck, if he could actually remember each card that had been dealt, he could implement much more advanced systems than most of us who just keep track of whether there are more high or low cards in the deck.
Also, again in 1-2 deck games, if he memorised the cards as they were played in one game, he could then remember runs of cards for the next game, to know for example when an Ace was coming out, or when to hit on 17-18 and know the next card was a three. With a dealer that doesn't shuffle perfectly of course.

What do you guys think? Would this guy be a casino's worst nightmare if he put his mind to it? Or am I just dreaming again?

 

[Blagger]

Memorising the card sequence in a stack of 54 decks is a remarkable feat but quite different to card counting in Blackjack. There are tricks to memorising sequences based on cross referencing. He took a long time to memorise the stack and quite a long time to recall it. That's because he had to work out his cross-referencing as he went along. Even so it takes a very special type of brain to manage it.

In Blackjack its not about memorising sequences. Its about keeping a running tally of expended and, by implication, remaining value in the remaining deck. It also has to be done at speed in real time.

I'm not sure the guy would make a good Blackjak counter but I wouldn't want to play him at bridge.

 

[JimmyFortune]

I'd like to play bridge against him , when you're an advanced+ bridgeplayer, you will be very proficient in remembering the cards. You can always tell which card is the 52nd. However it's not that you recall each card apart: you develop a system that keeps track of the four suits (whether there are still hearts left) and that keeps track of the tricks that have been played (13 tricks * 4 cards). So I can tell you the last card of a deck in bridge quite easily, but in BJ it will become much harder or maybe even impossible, because there's no pattern of the cards. so either this guy is an inhuman genius or he has a system/pattern he fills with the sequence of the cards.

 

[aussiecounter]

Memorising the card sequence in a stack of 54 decks is a remarkable feat but quite different to card counting in Blackjack. There are tricks to memorising sequences based on cross referencing. He took a long time to memorise the stack and quite a long time to recall it. That's because he had to work out his cross-referencing as he went along. Even so it takes a very special type of brain to manage it.

In Blackjack its not about memorising sequences. Its about keeping a running tally of expended and, by implication, remaining value in the remaining deck. It also has to be done at speed in real time.

I'm not sure the guy would make a good Blackjak counter but I wouldn't want to play him at bridge.

I knew someone would say something along those lines.

I suppose I might not have been clear enough in my surmising.
Remembering the sequence of 54 randomized decks is an absolutely astounding feat. I was saying that if he could do that as the maximum of his ability, then remembering 52 or 104 cards in casino conditions would be a possibilty. And if he could do that, knowing every card that has been played, he could bet and play accordingly. This would give him a much higher possible edge than a normal counter could achieve.

Doing this, he would not really be "card counting" as we know it, but something more, or perhaps the ultimate form of card counting.
Card counting isnt that hard, it just takes practice. This guy 'might' be capable of something much rarer.

Also, if he could remember the sequences of the cards and then observe them as they are played in the next game, he would (only occasionally maybe) be able to predict aces etc, which would possibly give him another big advantage.

 

[zengrifter]

O'Brien is ALSO a BJ cardcounter

"Dominic O’Brien was Brain of the Year in 1994 and was named Grandmaster of Memory by the Brain Trust of Great Britain. Outwitting the blackjack tables in Las Vegas has resulted in a ban, and he also holds the world record for memorising 2,385 random binary digits in 30 minutes."
http://www.worldmemorychampionship.com/how_it_started_The_first_memory_championships.asp (Archive copy)
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But hey, thats nothing, look at this -
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"THE ultimate test of memory, recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, is the ability to recall the number known as "pi" to the largest number of decimal places. In 1973, the record stood at 930 places. Since then, it has increased in leaps and bounds and stood at 42,195 by 1995. Still the record is challenged. In 1998, Yip Swe Chooi of Malaysia recited 60,000 digits of pi with only 44 errors. The following year another Malaysian, Sim Pohann, recited 67,053 digits with only 15 errors."
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Daily Exspress Thusday August 29 2002

Training the brain to perform amazing
feats is a case of flexing the mind muscle

MARKUS DUNK

MEMORY is a mysterious thing. A British woman suffering from amnesia was last week flown back to Britain after being found wandering the streets of Athens. She has given herself the name Jezebel Blythe but has absolutely no idea who she is or who her friends and family are, even though she retains the ability to recall language and other facts.

This week 46-year-old George Sims, who was feared dead in the September 11 attacks in New York, was found alive and well in a hospital, yet with no memory of the attack. Although it is clear that some sort of physical or psychological trauma is to blame for many cases of loss of memory, what remains unknown is how and why this faculty responds in such diverse and unpredictable ways. Even for those of us not affected by traumas, the ability to remember seems a hit and miss affair.

This isn't the case for everybody, however. This week, contestants at the World Memory Championships in London competed in gruelling exercises in which human recall was stretched to its limits. Andi Bell, a 34-year-old, walked away with the title of World Memory Champion after managing to memorise the order of 23 packs of cards in an hour, 156 names in 15 minutes, 192 words in 15 minutes, 50 dates in five minutes and the order of a deck of cards in 82 seconds.

According to participants in such events, the ability to memorise vast quantities of material is less to do with natural ability and more to do with practice. The memory is a muscle that must be built up. Most memorisers use a technique of substitution and association whereby words and numbers are replaced by memorable images and symbols. Former world memory champion Dominic O'Brien uses an old Greek method that utilises association, imagination and location.

THE ultimate test of memory, recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, is the ability to recall the number known as "pi" to the largest number of decimal places. In 1973, the record stood at 930 places. Since then, it has increased in leaps and bounds and stood at 42,195 by 1995. Still the record is challenged. In 1998, Yip Swe Chooi of Malaysia recited 60,000 digits of pi with only 44 errors. The following year another Malaysian, Sim Pohann, recited 67,053 digits with only 15 errors.

Although the ability rapidly to recall a lengthy string of numbers is impressive (as are the rest of these memory feats), it's hard not to wonder how useful - or practical - such achievements are.

Yet some have found that their talent for recalling enormous amounts of
information was invaluable in their work. One such person was Tom Tatham, who died this year. He was renowned as an authority on an enormous range of subjects and supplied the questions and answers to television and radio quiz shows, as well as editing Whitaker's Almanack and Wisden.

Today, however, we have largely given over the task of remembering to tools. With diaries, Palm Pilots, books and computers storing dates, numbers and information for us, there is less incentive to fill our brains with facts and data. This is nothing like the way in which ancient cultures treated the memory. In societies where books and writing were rare or non-existent, it was necessary for people to memorise stories, traditions or texts so that they could be passed on to future generations.

There are numerous cases of monks who could recall the whole of the New
Testament and other great swathes of the Bible.

Although this was partly an act of devotion, it was also done for the practical reason that books were extremely rare and expensive, and the memory was a readily available way for these texts to remain alive.

There seems little need for any of us to learn the Bible by heart now but developing such memory capabilities does have useful modern-day applications. Apart from competing in memory competitions, Dominic O'Brien runs courses on how to beat casinos at blackjack (a trick that has seen him banned from a number of establishments in Las Vegas). By memorising which cards have been dealt, it is possible to beat the house.

Although it may be possible to train your memory to perform such startling feats, it ultimately remains beyond our control. The amnesia that has afflicted George Sims and Jezebel Blythe is a mysterious phenomenon. Often, amnesiacs recover their memories as swiftly and inexplicably as they lost them.

IF THIS isn't much consolation to those of us with poor recall, it may be worth noting that experts believe forgetting is the brain's way of promoting psychological wellbeing. If we never forgot anything, not only would we go mad due to all that useless information in our thoughts, we would also never be able to see the bigger picture. As author Jon Wynne-Tyson once said: "The effectiveness of our memory banks is determined not by the total number of facts we take in but by the number we wish to reject."

Although if I were you, I'd be careful about using that as an excuse the next time you forget an anniversary or birthday.

How to remember --

THERE are a number of easy techniques that can be mastered to help you remember everything from people's names to telephone numbers. According to the Mind Tools website ((Dead link: http://www.demon.co.uk/mindtool/memory.html)), to remember the phone number 735345, imagine travelling to that person's flat: with the destination firmly in mind, envisage these stops on the journey:

1. Front door: the door has sprouted angels' wings and is flying up to heaven! (7)

2. Rose bush: a small sapling (tree, 3) is growing through the middle or the bush.

3. Car: some bees have started to build a hive (5) under the wheel of your car. You have to move it very carefully to avoid damaging it.

4. End of road: a tree (3) has fallen into the road. You have to drive around it.

5. Past the garage: someone has nailed a door (4) to the sign.

6. Under railway bridge; the bees are building another hive (5) between the
girders here.

 

[Mikeaber]

The numerical memorization tool was taught in Dale Carnage classes back in the Seventies involving rhymes for each number. He also taught a method of memorizing "lists" which might or might not be numerical. It involved images of common items for each position in the "list" on which you attached items to be remembered.

There was a "stack" technique taught as well. With it, you started out with an item, and made it ridiculous. Odd colored, anything to make it very unique. The next item would be "stacked" on top of it and once again, you went into great detail in visualizing the item. You'd be surprised at how long such a stack could become and recalled in order!