Тимур Гареев

After years of making the rounds with his blindfold displays, Gareyev announced his plan to officially break the record early in 2016. While he raised funds for the event, he also began serious preparation for this huge undertaking. One might assume that those who perform such feats of intellectual extremes are also endowed with superhuman abilities such as a computer-like ability to calculate, or a memory that will recite a license plate seen 12 years earlier, the truth is that extensive specialized preparation is involved. Playing ten boards for a player of his skill (he peaked at world no. 68 in 2013) might be attainable without such hard work, but not the record-breaking number he hoped to achieve. Gradually, his public displays grew more ambitious, with 20 boards and more, and he also regularly met with memory specialists such as James Jorasch, founder of the Science House in New York, who is a regular participant in the World Memory Championships. Jorasch is quick to explain that this is thanks to mastery of specialized techniques such as Memory Palace, and not some winning ticket in the genetic lottery he was lucky enough to be born with. James Jorasch of the Science House coached Timur Gareyev to help prepare him for the challenge .