Possibly the greatest chess player of all time, Magnus Carlsen, was quizzed on his incredible memory by seeing if he could identify matches based purely on the layout of a chess board.

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen is put to the test by English Grandmaster David Howell! How many games can he recognise? Please note the Kasparov-Karpov game should show USSR flags for both players.

Spoiler alert: he gets all of them except one, and even that one he eventually gets with a hint. And when you see the match and hear the hint it somehow makes it even more impressive. I don’t know a lot about chess but this is almost more impressive than him actually being good at the game. Sure, being the highest rated player of all time and world chess champion is great and all, but why not give all that up and join a traveling circus to really put that talent to work?

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Testing chess champion Magnus Carlsen’s insane memory