How A Magician Managed To Beat Some of England's Best!

The year is 2007, Viswanathan Anand has just reclaimed the title of World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura are beginning their rise to chess fame, and an ordinary chess player that would end up beating multiple chess masters? This is the true story of how a British mentalist by the name of Derren Brown managed to beat some of the best chess players in England back in 2007! And so without further ado, I present to you, How A Magician Managed To Beat Some of England's Best in Chess!

Derren Brown was born in Croydon, England on February 27th, 1971, and is well known for being a popular English entertainer, mentalist, writer, and by some a magician. Brown had a relatively good upbringing with an interest in law in his younger years that would eventually develop into his focus on illusion/hypnosis for a career upon meeting Martin S. Taylor. However it wasn’t until the early to mid-2000s that Brown’s career would start taking off as he began publishing his relatively popular shows such as Mind Control and Trick Of The Mind.

Despite his successful career as a mentalist, not much is known about Brown’s chess experiences. Even after hours of research, the only chess-related activity in relation to him was his video playing the 9 masters in a simul and a few speculations as to how he accomplished what he did on different forum websites. Some estimated that he was probably a mid-ranged club player while others made bold claims of a supposed 2200 rating. However, Brown himself described himself as “sh*t at chess”, further shrouding his actual chess level.

Context

In a video uploaded on Derren Brown’s YouTube channel (a reupload from Brown’s TV show, Trick of the Mind) called Derren Brown vs. 9 Chess Players, Brown is shown playing 9 different chess players that were considered some of Britain’s best. These players included the following, Graham Lee (FIDE Master), John Emms (Grandmaster), Julian Hodgson (Grandmaster), Paul Littlewood (International Master), Desmond Tan (Former England Junior), Jonathan Levitt (Grandmaster), Chris Ward (Grandmaster), Nathan Alfred (FIDE Master), Robert Chan (Former President of Chess Society At King's College London). 

Upon beginning the chess games Brown acts relatively casual as he wanders around the room while his opponents show signs of struggle at times. After a bit Derren shockingly wins in an upset against GM John Emms followed by another victory against FM Nathan Alfred. Finally, in his match against GM Johnathan Levitt, Brown at last loses however Johnathan interestingly enough has this to say about his match, 

It’s always nice to win…first 15 moves or so I felt as I was playing a leading grandmaster opponent - GM Jonathan Levitt*

Whether it was just a foreshadowing by Levitt or simply a baseless claim, he and Desmond Tan both described Brown’s chess skills as quite surprising and shockingly strong. As the games progressed Dereck would end up with an eventual score of 4 wins, 3 losses and 2 draws. Many of the players would continue describing their games with Brown but another comment stood out from Robern Chan. 

I’ve played a grandmaster and I think Derren is on par with them at least

 - Robert Chan

So that leaves the question as to how Brown managed to beat these players! After all, if he was that strong wouldn’t he be known at least slightly in the English chess world?

How did he do it?

Well, we still don’t know exactly how Brown managed to accomplish his victory entirely. The part Brown explains is how he managed to win most of the matches through a method called the “mirror trick”. 

This trick guarantees that at least 50% of even-numbered games will be a win for the one carrying out the simulation so long as they have an equally distributed amount of white/black pieces. Essentially as Derren describes it the players were playing each other because all Derren had to do was remember a move that was played against him and mirror it across another point. Although this does require a solid memory which Brown somehow managed to keep throughout the games. In a sense, Brown was cheating and as such the “mirroring technique” is banned today throughout most of the chess world. 

So now that we know how he managed to win the first 8 games, how exactly did he manage to beat Chan and predict the number of pieces left on the board? Here is where the division over how he accomplished this comes from as some believe that he had an earpiece or some other communication method with a person outside of the room (AKA a super engine of some sort). One user on a forum site even had this to say about Brown’s potential methods of 'cheating'.

Others believed that Chan was a paid actor while others claim that Derren is at least 2200 and was easily capable of beating Chan or perhaps that he was just lucky enough to win! As to how he predicted the number of pieces left on the board, the prominent theory is that Brown somehow swapped the envelope in Graham Lee’s coat-pocket. Either way, a truly incredible feat by Brown. 

Similar Situations & Closing Remarks

Unsurprisingly, the “mirroring technique” has been used before in chess history. One such instance was a fable about an anonymous chess player who challenged Alekhine and Bogoliubov in a correspondence chess match for money. However, the two masters would catch onto the chess player’s scheme and realize that in reality, they were playing each other.

A similar situation occurred in 1972 with the magician Romark challenging Bobby Fischer and Borris Spassky to a simul but being declined by the two likely due to concerns over the use of the “mirroring technique.” The stories go on and on though in reality none can compare to the scale that Brown’s experiment occurred on and as such is one of the most noteworthy of these instances of “cheating”. 

Thank you for your time, and I hope you enjoyed this blog! It was for the good part rushed but hopefully, I fare decently against @HornetCruise and his submission. See you next time!

Sources: Wikipedia, StraightDope, New York Times, ChessBase, YouTube, Google, AI Image Improvers, Mental Health, Rodgy's Bligs for Inspiration, etc...