10 Interesting Stories From The World Of Chess

British mentalist Derren Brown is well known for his acts of suggestion, his tricks and his uncanny ability to remain hugely entertaining while performing them. When it comes to chess, the man is apparently no slouch, either after he invited nine strong chess players and played them all simultaneously, guaranteeing that he would win more than half of the games. He managed this despite not being a titled player himself.

Now is Mr. Brown simply better than half of these high-rated players, or was something else afoot? The technique that he employed was fairly impressive. He was white on five boards and black on four so all that he did was to pair up two of the masters, one white and one black, and mirror their moves. In essence, eight of the games were just two master level chess players against one another with Derren serving as the method of transmitting the moves between them.

This guaranteed him a fifty percent success rate. So how did he beat the ninth man to achieve his promise? Straight up, or so he says. While remembering eight other sets of moves, he straight up beat the final man who was the "weakest" player there but still better than most. An impressive result for sure.