How to Develop a Perfect Memory (24 page)

These days, all fruit machines use sophisticated random-number generators that are impossible to predict.

The first quiz machine to appear in Britain was
Quizmaster
in 1985, closely followed by
Give Us A Break
in October 1986, and
Barquest
and
Ten Quid
Grid
in 1987. For a while, they became a national obsession. A whole wave of new machines started to appear, many of them based on TV and radio quiz

shows.
A Question of Sport, Every Second Counts, Strike it Lucky,
and
Treble
Top
all became market leaders

Most of them were paying out a top prize of £10. Each machine contained

about 1,000 multiple-choice questions, there were three or four answers to choose from, and if you got it wrong, the correct answer was usually given.

The manufacturers were alarmed to discover that SWPS generated

considerably less revenue than AWPS. On some sites, they were even losing money, particularly when the prize money went up to £20. It became apparent that they were being targeted by professional players - people who had learnt all the answers.

New editions were hastily brought out, each one containing around 1,000

questions (At the last count, there were thirty-three editions of
Give Us a
Break!)
The professionals learnt them as fast as they appeared (It was a boom time for the firms that thought up the questions.)

RICH PICKINGS

Today, there are signs that SWP manufacturers have grown tired of trying to outwit the professional player. Machines have been introduced with 10,000

questions, but they have suffered a similar, if slower fate to the others. At the 1993 trade fair for the amusement arcade industry (ATE at Earl's court in January), there was only one new quiz machine on display
Brainbox.
It offers a maximum cash prize of £6 and boasts over 12,000 questions. (The questions are generated randomly, and a second data bank of questions can be accessed if too many questions are answered correctly.)

In a dignified retreat, SWP manufacturers have switched the emphasis from large cash prizes to entertainment. The public are given longer on the machine, but they can't win as much. And a new range of machines requiring a

completely different set of skills is now coming onto the market
Crystal Maze,
a version of the Channel 4 cult TV game, is leading the way.

The implications of all this for professional players are bad in the long-term.

Manufacturers would clearly like to see the back of the old SWPS that offer

£20. However, there is still a huge public demand for these machines

(particularly
Give Us A Break, Barquest, Adders and Ladders, Every Second
Counts
)
,
and they continue to be installed in their hundreds around Britain's pubs. As long as these old favourites circulate, there will be rich pickings to be had for the experienced and aspiring player.

THE PROFESSIONALS

Any financial 'sting' requires an initial working capital. To date, most professional players get to know a machine by spending anything up to £250 playing them regularly and memorizing the answers. Simon, a player I met in Brighton (average earnings £400 a week, by no means full-time), wires himself up with a microphone before playing a new machine. Standing in front of it with a couple of friends, he says the answers out aloud and transcribes the tape later. (This tactic isn't to be recommended if you are alone!)

However, there is an easier, more systematic way to commit the answers to memory. Every week, World's Fair Publications publish
Coin Slot

International,
a widely read trade paper in the amusement industry. The last half a dozen pages are packed full of advertisements listing second-hand machines for sale, including SWPS.

The paper is little known outside the trade, but it is essential reading for aspiring players. Here is a small selection of some of the SWPS and prices listed in 1993:

Give us a Break

£150

Snooker Quiz

£175

Adders and Ladders

£145

Barques

£125

Barquest II

£150

Maze Master

£125

Maze Master

£125

Every Second Counts

£395

Instead of spending
£250
in pubs and clubs, it seems more sensible to buy a second-hand machine from a dealer, play it in the comfort of your own home (the money box can be easily removed) and memorize the answers at leisure.

The questions themselves vary quite a lot, but the principles that I outlined in Chapter 7 on
Trivial Pursuit
still apply.

Step 1: Choosing your Machine

Before buying a machine, spend a week going around as many pubs as you can in a chosen area. You will be surprised at how many pubs there are in Britian!

(There are 186 in the Hastings area alone.) Find out which machine is the most popular. Freehouses and tenancies tend to hire the old games. Large, brewery-owned pubs are best avoided; they are supplied with the latest models and the landlords are more vigilant.

Once you have located approximately ten sites where the same machine

(and edition) is installed, visit a few dealers, find an identical machine (and edition) and buy it. It might take a little reconaissance to locate a sufficient number of machines, but it will be worth the effort. Simon plays three editions of his favourite machine in Brighton and three in Worthing.

Step 2: Memorizing the Answers

Once you have installed the machine at home, most of the work has been done.

Multiple choice makes life much easier than learning
Trivial Pursuit
questions: if you can't remember the answer, at least you know that it's staring you in the face. There only has to be the faintest association for you to make the link. You should be able to memorize at least two questions a minute.

Remember: isolate a key word in the question and let it suggest a location.

Then use an image suggested by the answer. It should be possible to memorize 5,000 questions in thirty-five hours. By my calculation, that's a slightly less than the average working week. And I haven't taken into account the answers that you already know.

Step 3: The Loop

It is important to be subtle as you move around your circuit of chosen pubs (often referred to as a loop). Don't take everything you can out of the first machine; the landlord might not let you in again. (Professional players make life difficult for landlords, who are often on a profit-share agreement with the machine suppliers.)

Buy a drink before you play the machine and try to establish whether it has paid out recently. If someone is playing it, watch how much time they are being given to answer the questions. (Generally speaking, the more time the player has, the more money there is in the machine.)

Once you start to win, make sure it pays out in one thunderous go, preferably when the music is loud and just before you are about to leave. If it is continuously throwing money at you, someone might get suspicious.

You should be able to win between £30 and £50 from each machine before

it handicaps itself. Move on to the next pub and don't return for a while. If a machine is being emptied regularly, the landlord might decide to send it back.

Milk them slowly!

MORE THAN ONE LOOP

Pubs will swop their machines around after a while and you will have to decide whether to work a new patch or buy a new machine. There is a chance that you will be able to sell your old one back to the dealer or part exchange it. Don't bank on this! Even though there is a demand for SWPS, dealers won't

necessarily take them back, and they certainly won't offer you the full price.

Before you buy your first machine, it's sometimes worth asking the dealer whether they will buy it back from you in a couple of months, but be careful not to arouse their suspicion.

If your initial foray into the world of quiz machines is successful, you should consider investing in more machines. You can then plan a number of loops and alternate between them. There are several advantages. Landlords are less likely to recognize your face if you show up once every month instead of daily. And your revenue will increase!

OTHER PLAYERS

There seems to be a certain amount of co-operation among players.

Information is regularly traded about machines, editions, and their various idiosyncrasies (on
Give Us A Break,
edition 7, for example, there is no second chance at the first question). It's fairly easy to spot a professional, and it's always worth having a discreet chat with him or her.

HEALTH WARNING

It is very easy to get out of shape playing quiz machines. The smoky atmosphere of a pub and the constant temptation to drink are not conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Some people play better after one pint of beer. My own experience suggests that the brain performs best without any alcohol. The one thing you must watch out for, however, is the sort of landlord who might get difficult if you order tomato juices all night.

F.E.Y.

The legend of F.E.Y. lives on in pubs around Britain, even though the man himself has now retired from playing. Simon from Brighton first came across the initials F.E.Y. in 1990 in the Lake District, traditionally a happy hunting-ground for professional players. The pubs are small, the tourists provide good cover and the machines are always well stocked with money.

'It was the days when you could leave your initials on the machine if you got a high score,' says Simon. 'I was working in a team with three others. Wherever we went, we found his initials at the top of the all-time highest scores.'

One day Simon walked into a pub in Beverley, Lincolnshire, and to his

amazement he saw the initials F.E.Y. at the top of the highest score
of the day.

He looked around, wondering whether, after two years, he had finally caught up with this legendary player.

'I sat in the corner having a pint and waited to see if anyone would play the machine. After twenty minutes, a man came forward and started to play. I knew immediately it was him.'

Simon got chatting with F.E.Y. and compared notes. He was in his early

thirties and was about to purchase his £75,000 house. Outside in the car park, F.E.Y. showed him his large van, which he lived in as he travelled the country.

He was always on the move.

'It had a shower and I remember noticing all these bulging filofaxes stuffed full of routes, pub names, and questions. He was a graduate, quiet, and like the best players, had a good general knowledge before he got into the game.'

There aren't many people like F.E.Y., and not many people will want to live his sort of life, but it shows what can be done with a trained memory.

26

MEMORY AND THE

GREEKS

During the course of writing this book, I took the opportunity to read up on the history of memory. It came as something of a shock to discover that there were a number of striking similarities between my method and the Greeks' approach to memory.

I had heard of Simonides of Ceos, the Greek poet born in the 6th century BC, but I had never studied his famous memory skills in detail. A brilliant poet, Simonides is widely acknowledged as the founder of the art of memory.

The Greeks, and later the Romans, went on to develop some of the greatest memories the civilized world has ever seen. Memory was ranked as one of the most important disciplines of oratory, a flourishing art. They were living in an age of no paper, so people couldn't readily refer to any notes. Speeches were committed to memory; lawyers depended on their memory in court; and poets, whose role in society was paramount, regularly drew on their enormous powers of recall to recite long passages of verse.

The Greeks in general had a high level of literacy. Important texts were recorded on papyrus, and wax tablets were used to teach reading and writing in schools. Nevertheless, their culture remained a predominantly oral one.

The classical system disappeared around the fourth century AD, reappeared in the thirteenth century with a religious twist, thanks to Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics, and adopted various magical, occult, and scientific guises during Medieval and Renaissance times. Sadly, though, the art of memory in

Europe had already begun to wane in the fifteenth century with the advent of printing. It put up a heroic fight for almost two centuries but by the end of the seventeenth century, it had become marginalized.

I hope you, too, enjoy discovering the similarities between two systems

staring at each other across a divide of over two thousand years. In some ways, it is not so much coincidence, more a case of natural selection: both systems are rooted in personal experience, and have evolved accordingly.

THE PINNER PARTY

The story most people know about Simonides relates to a banquet thrown by a nobleman called Scopas. Simonides chanted a poem in his honour and also

included a few verses in praise of Castor and Pollux. When the poet had finished, the slightly jilted host told him that he would only be paid half his fee; he should ask the gods Castor and Pollux for the remainder.

Later on in the meal, a message arrived for Simonides, saying that two men wanted to see him outside. The poet left his table and walked out of the hall.

Moments later, the entire building collapsed, killing everyone inside.

Distraught relatives were unable to identify the mutilated corpses, and the authorities had an impossible job working out who had been at the dinner.

Enter Simonides. He had memorized where everyone was sitting and could

identify all the corpses. Castor and Pollux had paid back Simonides with interest, but I still prefer being staked £50,000 to play blackjack at Las Vegas.

ARTIFICIAL MEMORY