> > As I recall, when the chess pieces were put down on the board in a way that might actually occur in a decently-played game then the chess experts were *much* better at remembering exactly where each piece was and were actually pretty good at exact recreation. However, when the pieces were placed on the chess board completely randomly, the expert chess players and normal people did not show any significant different in the positions they could retain.

I can corroborate this from experience. I've frequently surprised myself at how well I can remember a chess position, and it's because I'd been playing it. I remember where, say, a knight goes, because it was on the edge and attacking these pieces, so I know where *those* go, and the dark bishops were attacking each other on the long diagonal, blocked by this pawn, which was protecting that pawn, which was blocked by the enemy rook, etc. Remembering the analysis of the position that is done naturally through playing it is typically all it takes. The only hard part about reconstructing a position from memory would be if something, usually a pawn, is off on its own, apart from most of the interconnections of pieces, but even then I can usually figure it out. And I'm far from a grand master or anything.

So, I haven't really tried memorizing a random chess position, but based on the above, it makes complete sense that a random position would be harder to memorize: the means for reconstructing the position just isn't there.

Rewinding a bit, Faux Pas, this common error of yours keeps company with "Murkon's Revenge" and "The Secret of Brackley Manor." I understand how it happens -- our memories *are* associative -- but not why people don't care enough about the things they care about to guard against errors like this. It's not all that hard to do a word-by-word verification, and when a title is long, like the 2 Guys title, I would have thought it a natural and obvious thing to do, not to mention a simple courtesy to the originator of the work.