I said I would post more on the knights tour at the end of the last post, but it was getting a bit long, so I'm writing it up here. The knight tour is a standard of mentalism. In essence it's a game whereby the mentalist attempts to touch upon each square of the cheeseboard using the knight chess piece can it's unique way of moving. See the knight may only move in an L shape either by two squares and then one or one square then two. This is quite difficult and in fact chess masters can have trouble doing it impromptu. We however have help. We cn use memonics to our advantage. Mnemonics are systems used to remember. In the knights tour a grid is remembered to accomplish the feat. Once you know the grid thef eat is easy as the move follow a logical sequence from one to another to matter where you start from. Just like a card stack, it doesn't matter where in the stack you begin, you just continue in its progression to find the next card. But that's another story for a later time. For now let me give you some software and resources where you can learn the knights tour. Then I will teach you how to present it in an entertaining matter that won't put the spectators to sleep.
Here is a site that explains it better than me. http://www.chessbase.com/columns/column.asp?pid=163 be sure to also download the app on the page to practice and display the tour if you so desire. (More on displaying it to come) You can also download or study a very good video tutorial here on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChiOwpOjH_4&feature=related I suggest you always download things to your computer as we never know when or for how long something will last online. (that goes for this blog as well) If you don't know how to download video from Youtube just Google it. There are also plenty of online trainers available but I don't recommend them for the simple fact that you have to be online and for the reason already express can't trust that it will always be there. It would be terrible to become dependent on an online resource only to have it disappear like magic someday. But I digress.
Back to the tour. So you have learned how the tour works and have practiced it's execution. You have also memorized the quadrants presented in the video in the diamond system and square system. and you feel confident that you can present this to the world. But how? I mean are you to carry around a chessboard with some kind of video cam that can project your moves to a screen? Well not exactly. You will need a little flash app of the Knights tour game. I found mine here, http://fliiby.com/file/760611/t30fv2gnuj.html this is just a .swf file and what makes it so good for displaying is that it can be placed into full screen mode. It also has a grid that allows you to call out the squares with no confusion as to which square you want. Finally there is a timer that shows how fast your able to solve the challenge. The timer feature is unique to this program as even Lior's doesn't have the timer.
So now you have the program you need but how do you present this to an audience. Well first it's suggested that you do it blindfolded. Not necessary. The demonstration is so good, just doing it looks good. You will however need to project the program onto a screen. Here is one way to do it. http://www.ehow.com/how_2179166_turn-laptop-big-screen-projector.html Here is another, http://www.ehow.com/how_5847760_project-computer-screen-overhead-projector.html If neither of these will work for you just Google it to learn how. In lior's pdf he says and I'm paraphrasing Just let the hotel your working for provide you with it. Really? Better call and find out first. But at least you have the program and hopefully the laptop then maybe your can get the projector from in Lior's words "a local shop" or something.
Anyway there you have it, just about all you need to present the knights tour. If I've missed something I'll be back to let you know in subsequent posts.
