I memorised a little over 4000 digits many years ago, back at high school. Sadly it didn't impress the girls as much as I would have liked 
The Australian record is something like ~10k digits if I am remembering correctly. One day I might try to re-learn them and attempt the record.
Seems a colossal waste of time to me, for once again few, if anyone, will be impressed. Playing some chess would be a better use of that time perhaps.
haha! it's funny that you assume chess can never be solved. i've come close to it, i'm a mathematician graduate student in harvard university.
my thesis dissertation will be on solving the problem of chess. i'm close to solving it so it will be solved soon
I memorised a little over 4000 digits many years ago, back at high school. Sadly it didn't impress the girls as much as I would have liked
Maybe it was your insistence on reciting all 4000 digits that they were not impressed with? I mean, how else could you not be impressed by someone who memorizes 4000 digits of pi?
I once memorized the first 100 digits.....but not in order.
Your generation being?
I memorised a little over 4000 digits many years ago, back at high school. Sadly it didn't impress the girls as much as I would have liked
The Australian record is something like ~10k digits if I am remembering correctly. One day I might try to re-learn them and attempt the record.
@6288
"you have to know the best move in every position by heart"
++ Or deduce it by logic reasoning. It is easier to remember a chess game than digits of pi:
chess has logic while pi is random without any pattern.
"THE best moves in a position" ++ A good move i.e. no error (?) is enough
"you would have to know every single possible position" ++ Only the relevant positions
"With 64 squares, and 24 pieces, that number is enormous"
++ 64 squares and 32 pieces give 10^44 legal positions of which 10^17 relevant
"for the first 10 moves, you can get something like 196 quintillion move orders"
Without transpositions : (4^11 - 1) / (4 - 1) = 1398101 positions
With transpositions: e^4 = 55 positions
Geometric average: 8737 positions
what about 78 moves?
Without transpositions: (4^79 - 1) / (4 - 1) = 10^47, more than there are legal positions
With transpositions: 55 positions
Geometric average: 10^24 positions, too high as the number without transpositions is too high
"there has been chess games, between engines, with more than 200 moves!"
++ Engine versus engine play on too long in totally drawn positions.
That is one of the tasks of the humans: to terminate calculations in clearly drawn positions.
Average game in ICCF correspondence: 39 moves.
@6294
"i'm a mathematician graduate student in harvard university.
my thesis dissertation will be on solving the problem of chess.
i'm close to solving it so it will be solved soon"
++ Interesting. Can you tell us some more?
Don't be ridiculous. 
When I was young I memorised enough to show off a little (can't recall how many, may have been as few as 30). I got the digits from a sci-fi novel because I judged (correctly) that the author would not have put wrong ones in. The question is what novel was it? It is possible it was Time for the Stars, but it could easily have been another I also read as a young teenager.
(Now I only know 14 digits after the decimal point. More than enough for most practical use.)
I read scifi avidly up until the age of about 16. That brings us to 1967. Sci-fi was changing and I didn't like the new stuff. More like fantasy and full of witches and dragons. Rubbish, so I stopped reading it. I recall a story that fits your decription but don't recall which it was. Poul Anderson? Just a guess.
Might have been Contact by Charles Sagan 1985, which I wouldn't have dreamed of reading. I suggested Poul Anderson because he was a physicist and used his knowledge in stories. Not my favourite author. Preferred Simak and Sheckley, to name a couple. Asimov also was scientifically bent but he was highly pedantic by nature and so had a poor and over-simplistic writing style although his stories had many good ideas. I doubt he would have tried to get away with 30 digits of pi.
@6294
"i'm a mathematician graduate student in harvard university.
my thesis dissertation will be on solving the problem of chess.
i'm close to solving it so it will be solved soon"
++ Interesting. Can you tell us some more?
Lol. That's a troll account named "kingbootyhole", a few hours old. The fact that you are ready to trust that this is a grad student at Harvard close to solving chess, with zero supporting evidence, just shows how/why you were taken in by Svheshnikov's offhand claim.
@Optimissed, I know Contact has pi in it, but this was way too late and not consistent with my memory! It has to be a novel published by the mid-1970s.
@6288
"you have to know the best move in every position by heart"
++ Or deduce it by logic reasoning. It is easier to remember a chess game than digits of pi:
chess has logic while pi is random without any pattern. (https://bellard.org/pi/)
"THE best moves in a position" ++ A good move i.e. no error (?) is enough
With the Black king anywhere in the a1-f6 square and White to move, Syzygy will give Kh8 as a good move (no error). With the White king instead on h8 he will give Kg8 as a good move. Those moves are NOT enough.
If you follow Syzygy's best moves, they are enough.
"you would have to know every single possible position" ++ Only the relevant positions
With a correct meaning assigned to "relevant" and the understanding that "position" meant a node in some solution, that would be true. Your definitions of both "position" and "relevant" are irrelevant to this point.
"With 64 squares, and 24 pieces, that number is enormous"
++ 64 squares and 32 pieces give 10^44 legal positions of which 10^17 relevant
"for the first 10 moves, you can get something like 196 quintillion move orders"
Without transpositions : (4^11 - 1) / (4 - 1) = 1398101 positions
With transpositions: e^4 = 55 positions
Geometric average: 8737 positions
what about 78 moves?
Without transpositions: (4^79 - 1) / (4 - 1) = 10^47, more than there are legal positions
With transpositions: 55 positions
Geometric average: 10^24 positions, too high as the number without transpositions is too high
I need @Elroch's laughing bean man at this point.
Apart from the ludicrous "calculations", you've still managed to "disprove" your own point.
"there has been chess games, between engines, with more than 200 moves!"
++ Engine versus engine play on too long in totally drawn positions.
Attaboy @tygxc - you show 'em how to do it!
That is one of the tasks of the humans: to terminate calculations in clearly drawn positions.
Average game in ICCF correspondence: 39 moves.
But only by taking shortcuts like this.
Now, will you stop wriggling and post your calculations for the games here? Then the rest of us can sensibly discuss the topic.
@6306
"disprove your own point" ++ No, proved my own point.
"Edwards, Jon (2525) vs. Miroslav Michálek (2480)" ++ This is clear human error.
Here is a more typical game: a draw in 35 moves, optimal play from both sides.
https://www.iccf.com/game?id=1164259
How do you prove it is optimal play?
The well-known proof technique of hubristic proclamation?
@6308
"How do you prove it is optimal play?"
++ By statistics: > 99% sure to be optimal play with no errors by either side.
Nothing has ever been proved by statistics.
Rather statistics provides support for uncertain belief.
You acknowledge an example explicitly when you say:
"99% sure to be optimal play"
This fails to support your previous (still) unsubstantiated claim:
"a draw in 35 moves, optimal play from both sides".
I conclude you don't even know the difference between certainty and a belief state of 99% probability.
@6308
"How do you prove it is optimal play?"
++ By statistics: > 99% sure to be optimal play with no errors by either side.
This seems a bit circular..... it's optimal if there are no errors. The definition of an error would be a move that is not optimal, right? It seems like you'd need to be more specific around the term "error" to make this concept useful.... maybe to the point of "in this position, any move other than xxxx is an error".
When I was young I memorised enough to show off a little (can't recall how many, may have been as few as 30). I got the digits from a sci-fi novel because I judged (correctly) that the author would not have put wrong ones in. The question is what novel was it? It is possible it was Time for the Stars, but it could easily have been another I also read as a young teenager.
(Now I only know 14 digits after the decimal point. More than enough for most practical use.)