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Memory Match
Turn over two cards. Match the shapes. Do it in as few moves as you can.
Memory Match is the card game usually called Concentration. All the cards start face down, you turn two over at a time, and matching pairs stay up. The whole game is the size of your short-term memory.
How to play
- Tap a card to turn it over.
- Tap a second. If the shapes match, both stay up.
- If they do not match, they flip back after a moment — remember where they were.
- Clear the board in as few moves as possible.
Why a system beats trying harder
Most people play memory games by flipping wherever their eye lands, then attempting to recall a scatter of unrelated positions. That works up to about six pairs and falls apart above it.
The fix is to impose an order. Flip cards left to right, top to bottom, the way you read. Each new card then arrives with a position that follows from the last one, and you are remembering a sequence rather than a set of coordinates. It feels slower for the first three or four moves and is dramatically better after that.
The second improvement is verbal. Silently naming what you see — “star, top right” — encodes the card in a second memory system that is not competing with the visual one. Interference between similar visual items is exactly what makes memory games hard, and naming sidesteps a lot of it.
Three sizes, three different problems
Six pairs fits comfortably in working memory for most people; a good game is close to perfect. Eight pairs is where a system starts to pay. Twelve pairs exceeds anyone’s raw recall, so it becomes a game about deciding which information to spend a move acquiring — the point at which this stops being a children’s game and becomes a genuinely interesting one.
Each size keeps its own record for fewest moves.
Tips
- Turn cards over in a fixed reading order rather than at random. Position is far easier to remember when it is attached to a sequence than when every flip is a fresh location.
- When you turn up a shape you have seen before, go to its partner immediately. Holding two unmatched locations in memory is much harder than holding one.
- Say the shape and its position to yourself as you flip. Naming things moves them from visual memory into verbal memory, and verbal memory holds them longer under interference.
- Early on, prefer opening two unknown cards over checking a card you already know. Information is worth more than a match while most of the board is still hidden.
Questions
How is the score worked out?
By moves, not time. A move is one pair of cards turned over, and the best score is the fewest moves for that board size.
What is the theoretical best?
The number of pairs — you would have to match every pair on its first attempt. In practice anything under about one and a half times the pair count is a strong game.
Why shapes instead of emoji or pictures?
Emoji render differently on every platform, which quietly changes how easy the game is. Flat shapes drawn as vectors look identical everywhere and stay crisp on any screen.
How long do cards stay face up?
About six tenths of a second on a mismatch — long enough to register the shape and place, short enough that the game keeps moving.
Does the board change every game?
Yes, the deck is shuffled each time you start.
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