Chess memory training you can score. Rebuild boards from 6 pieces to 12, with a clear rule for when to add pieces and what each result message means.
Written with AI assistance; chess positions checked by script and game facts traced to the code.
Quick answer
Chess memory training means looking at a position for a few seconds, rebuilding the board from memory and scoring it square by square. Start at 6 pieces and 10 seconds, and add two pieces after three perfect rounds in a row. Keep the look at 10 seconds until 12 pieces comes back perfect three times, then lower it to 8.
Takeaways
Who this is for
Memory Chess compares your board with the original square by square. A piece counts only when its square, type and colour all match. A white knight on f3 when the original had it on e3 is wrong. So is a black rook on a8 when that rook was white.
An extra piece is any piece beyond the round's count. Each extra piece is listed as wrong and also takes ten points off your accuracy, which never drops below zero. With five right and one wrong already on a 6-piece board, a seventh piece drops 83 percent to 73. So stop placing once you reach the count.
The message on the result screen comes straight from your accuracy. 100 percent is Perfect Score, 90 or more is Excellent Memory, 80 is Great Job, 70 is Well Done and 50 is Good Effort. Below 50 the screen says Keep Practicing. Those are the only six messages, and the thresholds are the same at every piece count.
At 6 pieces each piece is worth about 17 points, so the steps are steep. Four out of 6 is 67 percent, Good Effort. It means two pieces were missing or wrong. Before you press Try Again, find those two pieces on the result board and note what kind of piece each was.
With no extra pieces on the board, a 6-piece round goes straight from Great Job at five correct to Perfect Score at six. So it never shows Excellent Memory. Six correct plus one extra piece shows Excellent Memory, at 90, which is why the piece count tells you more than the message. The table shows how much one miss costs at 6 pieces against 12.
| Your rebuild | At 6 pieces | At 12 pieces |
|---|---|---|
| All correct | 100 percent, Perfect Score | 100 percent, Perfect Score |
| All correct plus one extra piece | 90 percent, Excellent Memory | 90 percent, Excellent Memory |
| All but one correct | 83 percent, Great Job | 92 percent, Excellent Memory |
| All but two correct | 67 percent, Good Effort | 83 percent, Great Job |
| All but three correct | 50 percent, Good Effort | 75 percent, Well Done |
If you have never played, start with one round of the 2-piece preset. It holds only the two kings and teaches the controls: pick a type and colour, tap a square, tap again to remove. After that round it has nothing left to teach, so the ladder starts at 6. The table shows the five rungs and the result that moves you up from each.
| Rung | Pieces and look | Move on after |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 pieces, 10 seconds, the medium preset | Three Perfect Score rounds in a row |
| 2 | 8 pieces, 10 seconds, custom | Three Perfect Score rounds in a row |
| 3 | 10 pieces, 10 seconds, custom | Three Perfect Score rounds in a row |
| 4 | 12 pieces, 10 seconds, the hard preset count with a longer look | Three Perfect Score rounds in a row |
| 5 | 12 pieces, 8 seconds, the hard preset | Excellent Memory or Perfect Score in three of four rounds, then try the 20-piece preset |
5 rounds of 6 pieces, 10 seconds, about 5 minutes. Place the kings first, then only the pieces you are sure of, then submit. Leave guesses off so the result shows what you actually remembered. A lucky guess scores the same as a remembered piece, and a wrong one costs nothing, so guesses make the score claim more than you know.
Aim for: Three Perfect Score rounds in a row before you add a single piece.
Play 6 pieces, 10 seconds3 rounds of 8 pieces, 10 seconds, about 4 minutes. Keep the same routine with two more pieces. After each round, note which pieces you lost: the pawns, the pieces far from the kings, or the last ones you looked at.
Aim for: Three Perfect Score rounds in a row, then move to 10 pieces.
Play 8 pieces, 10 seconds4 rounds of 12 pieces, 8 seconds, about 6 minutes. Play these once 12 pieces at 10 seconds gives three Perfect Score rounds in a row. Read the board in three or four groups of three or four pieces, starting with the kings. A group is pieces that touch or share a rank or file, such as a pawn pair on f2 and g2.
Aim for: Excellent Memory or Perfect Score, which at this count means at least 11 of the 12, in three of four rounds. Then try the 20-piece preset.
Play 12 pieces, 8 secondsSkip ends the look early. The game records how long you actually looked, and the result screen and the leaderboard use that number. So once you have the board, skip.
Try Again keeps your piece count and look time and deals a new position. You never see the same board twice. That suits training, and it means one perfect round might be an easy draw. Three perfect rounds in a row at the same settings is a signal.
On the result board under Review Your Position, a piece you placed is marked correct or wrong placement. An original square you left empty is marked missed square and shows the piece that stood there.
Rebuilding from an empty board is a recall test, and recall tests help a memory last. Roediger and Karpicke had students study a prose passage, then either reread it or write down what they recalled. A week later the tested students remembered more. On a board, rebuilding is the written recall and staring longer is the rereading.
Gobet and Simon showed strong players several boards in a row for a few seconds each, and the players still recalled much of each one. The authors explain it with templates, large familiar patterns held in long-term memory.
Memory Chess positions are random, so you rarely meet a familiar template. The plain groups from the hard-preset drill, pieces that touch or share a rank or file, take their place.
Groups are what make the hard preset possible. Piece by piece, 12 pieces in 8 seconds leaves two thirds of a second each. In three or four groups it leaves two seconds or more each.
No. Twenty pieces in five seconds leaves a quarter of a second for each. First reach Excellent Memory or Perfect Score in three of four rounds at 12 pieces and 8 seconds. Before that, 20 pieces is likely to end in Keep Practicing with little to learn from.
Only as a tiebreak. Entries are ordered by correct pieces, then fewest wrong pieces, then shortest look time, then shortest solution time. A quick skip helps you only against a player with the same correct and wrong counts, so accuracy comes first.
Yes, with a real board and a friend. Have them set up 6 pieces, both kings included, and give you 10 seconds to look. Clear the board and rebuild it, then check square by square. Count a piece only when its square, type and colour match, and treat any extra piece as a miss.
Read next
Once 12 pieces feels ordinary, learn to read clusters instead of pieces.
Where holding a position while the board is empty pays off in a real game.
Picture the board with no board in front of you at all.
Sources
Supports the claim that students who took a recall test remembered more a week later than students who reread the passage.
Supports the claim that strong players shown several boards briefly could still recall much of each, explained by templates held in long-term memory.
Memory and patterns