Chunking: The Trick That Breaks 67 Simon's Long Sequences
How to use chunking, a real memory science technique, to hold long Six Seven Simon sequences in your head longer.
· 3 min read · by the 67 team
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There is a reason phone numbers get written as three digits, then three, then four, instead of ten digits in a row. Nobody remembers "5551234567" as a single block, but almost anyone can remember "555, 123, 4567" after hearing it once. That trick is called chunking, and it is the single most useful thing you can borrow from memory science and drop straight into Six Seven Simon.
What chunking actually is
Chunking means grouping individual items into small clusters, then remembering the clusters instead of the raw items. Your working memory can only reliably hold a handful of separate things at once, but it can hold that same handful of things if each one is itself a small group. Four groups of two feels far lighter than eight individual items, even though it is the exact same information.
In Six Seven Simon, the individual items are gestures: six, seven, both, clap. Once a sequence hits six, seven, eight gestures long, trying to hold each one as a separate memory starts to break down fast. Chunking is how you keep up anyway.
How to chunk a sequence as it plays
You cannot pause the watch phase, so chunking here has to happen live, in real time, as the gestures flash. The practical version looks like this: as you watch, silently group the gestures into pairs as they appear, rather than trying to hold each one separately. "Six seven" as a pair, then "both clap" as the next pair, then whatever comes after as a third pair.
You are not changing what you saw, you are changing how you are storing it. Instead of four separate memories, you now have two paired memories, and two is a number your brain handles far more comfortably than four.
Why pairs work better than bigger chunks
It is tempting to try chunking in bigger groups, three or four gestures at a time, since fewer total chunks sounds even better. In practice this backfires for most players in Six Seven Simon specifically, because the sequences move fast and grouping three fresh gestures on the fly demands more attention than you have spare while also watching for the next flash. Pairs hit a sweet spot: small enough to form instantly as two gestures land, big enough to actually reduce your mental load.
Applying it during the repeat phase
Chunking is not just for watching, it helps your taps too. Instead of tapping gesture by gesture while consciously checking each one against memory, tap in the same pairs you built while watching. Execute the first pair as a small burst, take a breath, then execute the second pair. This mirrors how the information is actually stored in your head, so retrieval feels smoother than trying to pull one isolated gesture out at a time.
Where chunking starts to matter
Below round five or six, chunking is honestly overkill, the sequence is short enough that most people hold it fine without any special technique. The payoff shows up once sequences stretch past six or seven gestures, right around the point where flashes also start coming noticeably faster. That is exactly the wall a lot of players hit and cannot get past. Chunking is one of the more reliable ways through it.
A quick way to practice
Next time you play, do not aim for a new personal best right away. Instead, deliberately practice chunking on a normal run, pairing gestures in your head as they flash, even on short sequences where you do not strictly need to. Building the habit on easy rounds means it is already automatic by the time a hard round actually needs it.
Ready to put chunking to the test against your own memory? Play Six Seven Simon and try pairing the gestures as they flash on your next run. For the full menu of memory tricks beyond chunking alone, read our roundup of memory techniques, or tell us in the chat how many rounds chunking added to your score.
