This topic was inspired by the "Accuracy of recent kifus" thread.

I use pen and paper to record my own tournament games, but it is hard work. Often, I lose a pen during
the game, or a pen dries up, or I can't find my stock of blank kifu before setting off in the morning. Even
without any of those aggravations, the resulting record always contains lots of errors, and a fair copy has to be
made immediately after the game while the moves are still fresh in the mind. Errors tend to multiply during the
tense fights which are especially interesting to record. Sometimes I resort to drawing a picture in the margin
to capture part of the board after a fight settles down. And I don't even try to keep a record if the time limit is
less than 45 minutes per player.

It is not a scientific survey, but I notice that amateur dan players in the UK generally don't bother recording their games.
It's us 3 to 7 kyu players who do it. And maybe two out of three players who record now use some kind of
small computer. This helps avoid some mistakes, but the player still has to look after the device, keep it charged,
make sure it does not fall off the table or get lost or get dowsed in coffee, all of which are distractions.

I have considered setting up a compact camera on a small tripod to take a picture every 5 moves or so,
which would be good enough to reconstruct the game aftwerwards. It would need the opponent's permission,
of course. And would entail its own distractions.

And sometimes there is no room on the playing surface for a camera, a kifu or a tablet. I'm looking at you,
Three Peaks Tournament.

This is an interesting observation. From my personal experience, by the time I reached about 2 dan, I had no difficulty remembering the whole game except the small yoses (which were often finished fairly quickly). This is particularly true for slow games.

(Almost) all the dan players I know who record their games do so afterwards, but many do write them down. This includes myself, it's a useful review technique just to go through the game, and helps keep it memorable for a few days. I don't really make an effort to keep the records though.

Actually, I'd go as far as to say it's somewhat conventional wisdom that you should try to learn to do this, and that doing so during the game is often considered a distracting kind of crutch. I'm not sure to what extent I agree, but at the very least I recommend attempting to learn to do so... even if it's hard and you can't remember much, it gets easier surprisingly quickly and is excellent practice. Personally, I'd consider it worth losing a few game records along the way to get better at it.

I have once tried successfully to memorize a tournament game; at EGC actually, so 90 minutes main time was enough to recap a few times how the game evolved from the beginning. That was enough to keep it in memory until after the game, and during the tournament pause I wrote it down in a kifu book.

So it is possible to memorize a game at around 6k, but requires mental effort.

Am I right in reading the implication that this really means memorising a game at around 6k even without much specific practice. I'd claim the latter part is as relevant as the rank alone.

I think for dan-level players, memorising games comes naturally. For single-digit kyu players, it is possible to do it with some practice.

depends on time . how long to memorize, after recovery rate is quite high, after 1 week for sure, it can be forgotten .

At the US Go Congress, with its long game times, I record games on my iPad. It doesn't take much time, and looking away from the board is healthy. It discourages just answering.

I sometimes screw up the order of my opponents moves, when just working from memory. My moves are easier to remember.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

For awhile i could memorize my games around the 2k-1d level. It wasn't worth it. You'd either forget one or two moves or forget it by the next day.

I just record them now onto my ipad mini. Much easier.

Pen and paper is fine though, bring two pens, red and blue and just record them. You get better with practice and then it becomes second nature.

To me, recording is important if you want to bring it to a teacher or review it in depth afterwards. Otherwise I wouldn't say it's completely necessary.

I've always recorded my games with pen and paper, but its been two or three years now since I've played in a tournament (and I record other people's games these days -- on laptop).

I've gotten better about remembering my games (and it does take practice), but I don't yet trust myself with important games (and finding uninterrupted time immediately afterward can be difficult). I figure I lose as much as 2 to 4 handicap stones my recording my own games on paper while playing, but its worth it to me to have a record afterward. Eventually I'll get better.

Most of the cool kids uses their iPad/iPhone/other tablet these days. I would if I had one.

The biggest problem recording on paper is correcting mistakes, and losing track of move numbers. Most clocks can help keep track of move numbers (if you don't forget to punch the clock)

What do you mean by "specific practice"? Practice memorizing games? I have tried memorizing professional games, but only maybe a handful. Game practice? At the time when I played and memorized the game (last year), I still had some (realtime) game practice. I suppose that nowadays it would take me even more mental effort to memorize, but it is possible in the mid-sdk ranges.

I specifically was thinking of something like trying to remember most/all of your games after playing them, either recording them or even just playing through them as far as you can remember. I could thing of other similar things, but I don't mean specifically memorising pro games or anything like that, which I think may be much less useful for this particular skill.

Nowadays, if I record, I record from memory after a tournament. I usually have no trouble recording all five games of a weekend tournament on the next Monday, although I do the endgame order wrong sometimes.

I discovered after playing in person that I could replay games from memory.

My opponent wanted to review and I was thinking... how....

It's easier when i spent a lot of time on the game.

When reviewing from memory I just thought to myself.
In this position where would I have hated for my enemy to play. Because he probably did.
And then after that I would think, Where is the second best move...
Because you always find better moves 2 or 3 turns after you play.