Reading the minds of world champions

Suhani Shah is an Indian mentalist, mind reader, magician, and YouTuber. She began her career in magic at a remarkably young age, performing her first stage show at the age of seven. She left formal schooling after second grade to pursue her passion and was home-schooled during her frequent magic tours.

Suhani's performances are known for their blend of mind reading, situational comedy, and audience participation. Her comedic charm has made her a very popular figure in the entertainment industry. And she is keenly interested in chess. This is the demonstration she gave in mid-January in Chennai:

We know how she performed this impressive feat. It was done using a portable Bluetooth mini photo printer, of which dozens are available. Suhani added a sheet of photo paper to her notebook, and inserted it into the photo printer in her pocket. 

While Anand and Gukesh are dictating moves, an assistant is entering them in his mobile phone. When they are done, he creates an image, uploads it to the Bluetooth printer in Suhani's pocket, and signals her that it will now print. She can feel this, and when it stops printing she extracts the notepad with the moves printed on the top leaf. Very clever!

As a student of the great James Randi I was able to spot the above trick quite easily. But I must confess I have not worked out (yet) how Suhani did the next demonstrations.

Here I can only say that Gukesh tried his very best to avoid giving her any clues, not reacting to any of her leading questions. He sits absolutely stone-faced there. I think he remembered what I told him about my own encounters with palm readers, and how I stymied a well-known palmist by showing absolutely no reaction to what he was saying. That story is here. But how Suhani guessed the piece and square Gukesh was thinking of eludes me. Watch Anand, Pragg and Vaishali enjoy the demonstration.

Now explain the next mind-reading demo she did with Anand:

Once again, no idea how she did it! Maybe our readers have explanations?

And finally, here's something she did with the grandmaster siblings Vaishali and Pragg:

This lady is really good. If you want more – much, much more – you are welcome to visit the Suhani Shah YouTube Channel, where she has over four million subscribers.