So the book is basically non-theoretical in focus, unlike most current economic tomes, and is very factually oriented. An article about it by Catherine Rampell was featured in The New York Times of July 4, where she describes it as a “quantitative reconstruction of hundreds of historical episodes in which perfectly smart people made perfectly disastrous decisions.” Readers of our website can find the article here. Or they could have seen Rogoff in person on one of his numerous appearances on CNN and other television channels. However, they may be surprised that Rampell devotes some space to Rogoff’s chess career, which I think certainly did merit mention.

At the age of 17, Rogoff played first board for the United States team that won the Chess World Student Olympiad in Haifa, Israel, in 1970. He finally gained the grandmaster title in 1978 and soon afterward completely gave up serious chess! He decided to devote himself to the field of economics and after graduate work at MIT, he eventually became chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and later accepted professorships, first at Princeton and then at Harvard, where he is now located.

Speaking to Rampell, he said that after he received a chess set for his 13th birthday he soon found that he was something of a prodigy, something he decided to hide so he wouldn’t get beaten up in the school lunchroom. “I think chess may be a relatively cool thing for kids to do now, on par with soccer or other sports” ... but “it really wasn’t then.” After becoming a GM years later, he left chess because he realized he probably would never be ranked No. 1 in the world. He remarked that “To this day I get letters, maybe every two years, from top players asking me: ‘How do I quit? I want to quit like you did, and I can’t figure out how to do it.’” Rogoff tells them that “it’s hard to go from being at the top of a field, because you really feel that way when you’re playing chess and winning, to being at the bottom—and they really need to prepare themselves for that.”

Rampell notes that Rogoff sometimes wore a blindfold while playing many opponents simultaneously to support himself while wandering from one competition to another in Europe, but she does not mention that he is one of only nine players since 1954 to play more than 20 games at once without sight of any boards or pieces. We happened to discover this fact while writing our book on blindfold chess and in 2004 contacted Rogoff for more details. He responded quickly and we included a section about him on pp. 117-118 of the book. He noted that he gave blindfold displays once every three months or so during 1967-69, when he was 14-16 years old, mostly at the Rochester Chess Club but occasionally at shopping malls—about a dozen well-controlled exhibitions.

This is what he had to say about those events:

My exhibitions were always done under fairly strict rules. I required opponents to keep score, and would always have a strong player monitor the games. I honestly do not think I ever made an illegal move, though my opponents often tried (but the rules I played under were “touch-move”; if I were to make an illegal move with a piece, I had to try to make a legal move, if possible, with that same piece). My exhibitions at the Rochester club (the only place I played more than 10 at once) were against the people who came to the club and who ranged from Class D to Expert, with an average rating typically of about 1700-1800…

My records are very sketchy, since I was just doing it for fun. I was not thinking in terms of records. I did not keep the score sheets, though I did sometimes write down the moves afterwards. I believe the day I played 26 opponents was the first Saturday in October 1968. The average strength was much lower than my usual 10-12 person exhibitions simply because we had to use everyone at the club that day, so (despite the participation of some strong players) there were certainly at least a half dozen unrated players. My best recollection is that I won 20, had 3 draws and 3 losses over the course of 4-5 hours. The consistency of my play was notably lower than when I did, say 12-15.

This is an extraordinary report. Not only was Rogoff just 15 years old when he played 26 opponents at once blindfolded, but the four to five hours he required are fewer than any world blindfold champion took to play at least 16 games. Despite the hope that he would find the approximately six game score sheets from the 26-player event that he recalled writing down himself after the display, he was unable to locate them (he mentioned that a large number of his game scores had been stored at his parents’ house and mice ate most of them!).

Readers interested in more aspects of Rogoff’s early years, up to the time when he decided to quit chess and study economics, will find many chess details in his Harvard biographical sketch. Links that include some of his games, tournament results, and photos are given in this sketch.

Since no one has apparently played more than 26 simultaneous blindfold games since 1993, when Hans Jung of Canada played that many, Lang will be taking quite a leap forward and doubling the number of games he handled in his 23-board display. The 23-board display has not received adequate coverage in the non-German chess media and Lang was kind enough to send us more material about that exhibition, including a selection of games and a few photographs. We devote this blog mainly to his play in that event and will let you ponder whether he will be able to accomplish his goal of 46 games next year.

Lang, 40 and married with two young children, is a self-employed computer programmer and antique dealer, too busy with his business and family to play chess professionally. He lives in Günzburg, 60 miles west of Munich in Bavaria, and keeps up with chess by reading many relevant books and magazines without any chessboard available, in his bed or bathroom. Lang has remarked that “blindfold is just like I’m used to studying chess”.

When giving blindfold displays,which he had done several times before setting the new German record, he reports that he does not visualize boards and pieces, but only “spots” and “functions”. “For instance, I know there is something called a rook on a1 and I know where it can move to from there in that particular position. That’s all. There are no colors, no shapes, nothing. When I was younger, I used to see the board with yellow and black squares, but now even that is gone”. This account of “abstract” rather than “concrete” visualization is typical of what experienced blindfold masters of the past have reported; there is much discussion of this counter-intuitive finding in the Hearst-Knott book.

It’s time to concentrate on Lang’s German record-setting display in Ditzingen, a small town near Stuttgart. As in his last previous blindfold exhibition against 15 opponents, the physical arrangement for the 23-board performance was different from virtually all serious displays over past centuries. Lang did not want to be blindfolded, sit with his back to the players, or be located in a separate room or cubicle; he preferred to face the players and chat with them as the event progressed. So cardboard barriers (DHL postal-service yellow plastic boxes) were placed in front of each opponent’s chessboard . This prevented him from seeing the chess positions but enabled him to see his opponents’ faces and converse with them as they announced their moves. He thinks this arrangement permits him to more easily keep the various games separate in his memory because he can associate a face and a voice with a particular game. The below photograph shows the setup at the start of the exhibition.

His opponents’ ratings ranged from about 1200-2300, according to the USCF system. He had found in earlier displays that he did not play so well when he opened with moves he would not normally play himself, like 1.b3 or 1.b4. At Ditzingen he played only c4, d4, e4, or Nf3 as his first move on successive boards, starting with c4 on Board 1, d4 on Board 2, and so on. He subsequently chose different variations when his opponents’ answered these first moves similarly, to help keep separate games distinctive. He plans a more detailed and well-rehearsed system of opening play when he takes on 46 players next year. Perhaps he will take the Black pieces in some game numbers, as Najdorf did to keep each of the three sets of 15 games separate in his memory (described in our book, he took Black on the 13th and 14th games in each set of 15, and played an unusual move on the 15th board in each set).

After 3 hours of play the score was 2.5-0.5 in Lang’s favor and he was wondering whether the exhibition might last until midnight (it had started at10:30 AM). But the different positions were quite clear in his mind after 2 hours; before that he occasionally had to replay some games mentally to order to get to the correct current position.

Around the 7th hour of play he began to “grow very, very tired”, even though all the individual positions were still clear in his mind. So he decided to use a tactic tried by the teams of Germany and Austria when they faced each other at the soccer World Cup matches in Spain in 1982. Germany needed a win to get to the next round and Austria had to avoid a loss by two or more goals. After Germany went ahead 1-0 both teams stopped playing seriously for the rest of the game. They just passed the ball back and forth, without attempting to score. So Lang decided merely to make moves without too much purpose, to gain a draw in the even games or worse positions and then to concentrate on the games where he had a definite advantage. The exhibition ended after about 11 hours of play at 10 PM. A few hours before then he had recovered his alertness and motivation and he gained 4 1/2 points from the last 5 games. Perhaps he was also sustained by the snacks that his wife had provided for him in a special snack bag she had given him for good luck, as well the thermos and bottles of various liquids he kept in front of him. The table in front of him is shown in the below photograph.

Lang ended up winning 9 games, losing only 2, and drawing 12 for a score of 15-8 (65.2%). At the end he said to himself “Never again!”. But soon his attitude changed and now he plans to beat Najdorf’s 45-board record by playing 46 on 4/6/2011; note that the date corresponds to the number of boards he will play (in Europe the day precedes the month, so the official date will be June 4, 2011). He intends to limit the strength of his opponents to around 1800 USCF because he figures his own rating will decrease by considerably more than 400 points when he takes on so many opponents. He will practice during the next year by playing 30-35 opponents at once. Because it is so difficult to gather so many players together for such long sessions, he has the idea of playing 35 computer games at once! As a computer expert, he says he can easily organize this kind of arrangement (he has 6 computers at home and each computer can host several games, with maximum ratings set around 1800). He will only need one or two friends to handle the transmission of moves back and forth. An ingenious way to prepare for setting a world record…

We conclude by presenting two nice games from Lang’s 23-board display that set a new German record for number of simultaneous blindfold games:

M. Lang - M. Schmidt
Ditzingen, Germany, November 21, 2009; Board 22 (of 23); French Defense; CO2

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 Bb5 7.c4 Bxc4 8.Bxc4 Qb4+ 9.Nbd2 dxc4 10.0–0 cxd4 11.Nxd4 c3 12.bxc3 Qxc3

13.Nb5! Qc6 14.Qa4 Nd7 15.Ne4 a6 16.Ned6+ Bxd6 17.Nxd6+ Kf8 18.Qf4 f6 19.Ba3 Nxe5 20.Nc4+. 1–0

M. Lang - O. Schömbs
Ditzingen, Germany, November 21, 2009; Board 20 (of 23); Irregular Opening; A00

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3 d6 3.e4 Nbd7 4.d4 g6 5.Bc4 Bg7 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Ng5+ Kg8 8.Ne6 Qe8 9.Nxc7 Qd8 10.Nxa8 Nf8 11.e5 Ne8 12.0–0 Bd7 13.Bg5 h6 14.Bh4 dxe5 15.dxe5 g5 16.Bg3 Qxa8 17.f4 Bc6 18.f5 b5 19.Qe2 Qb7 20.Rae1 h5 21.h3 Nd7 22.a3 a5 23.b4 axb4 24.axb4 Qa7+ 25.Kh1 Qa3 26.Qe3 Qa8 27.Re2 h4 28.Bh2 g4 29.f6 exf6 30.exf6 Nexf6 31.Qe6+ Kh7 32.Qf5+ Kg8 33.Qe6+ Kh7

34.Nxb5! gxh3 35.Qxh3 Ne4 36.Qf5+ Kg8 37.Qf7+ Kh7 38.Nc7 Qf8 39.Qh5+ Kg8 40.Rxf8+ Bxf8 41.Qg4+ Bg7 42.Rxe4. 1–0

The Amber tourneys allow an eventual comparison of each player’s world ranking at blindfold chess with his or her ranking in rapid chess or in chess at the traditional slow speed (“classical”, FIDE-rated games). Would the FIDE rankings of grandmasters correlate best with their blindfold play or with their rapid play, and would players’ rankings in blindfold and rapid chess differ significantly? Supposedly obvious predictions about these correlations might prove false if data were available to test them.

Elmer Sangalang of the Philippines volunteered to calculate ratings based on the 2,376 games played in the rapid and blindfold modes over all the 18 Amber tourneys that started in 1993, including the most recent event in March of 2010. Sangalang was the editor of the 2nd edition of Arpad Elo’s “The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present”, published in 1986, which extended and corrected material in the first edition. Now retired, Sangalang worked mainly as an engineer, actuary, and applied mathematician. He has been a consultant for FIDE on the ELO rating system since 1984.

It was not an easy job to collect complete scoretables for every Amber tourney but ultimately Sangalang was successful and he could include all games from the blindfold and rapid halves of those events. On the other hand, FIDE ratings appear regularly every 2 months and he waited for the publication of the May 1, 2010 ratings and rankings to have the most recent results available for his analysis.

His method for calculating the Amber rapid and blindfold ratings followed the standard ELO procedure (Method of Successive Approximations). The calculations began by assigning every player an initial rating of 2600, to keep the numerical values completely independent of players’ different FIDE ratings. Starting with the players’ actual FIDE ratings seemed less reasonable and would bias the results in favor of the more highly-ranked individuals. So all the numerical ratings for the three groups presented below (Blindfold, Rapid, and FIDE) are independent of each other and cannot be compared in terms of their numerical values, that is, one cannot conclude that, say, Anand’s FIDE rating of 2789 means that he is better at slow chess than rapid chess (rating of 2688) or blindfold chess (rating of 2667). However, the rankings of the players (from 1 to 29) have no such limitations or restrictions and a comparison of these in the three groups is entirely justified. To increase the statistical reliability of the results, only players who participated in at least two Amber tourneys were included below, a total of 29 competitors.

Here are the results for the three types of play. We reiterate that each of the three sets of data are independent of each other, and the numerical values of the ratings cannot be legitimately compared. Before looking at the results, readers might like to guess, for example, whether FIDE rankings would correlate best with rankings in blindfold play or sighted rapid play.

After all the above rankings had been tabulated, statistically-determined correlations were calculated for each of the three possible pairs of comparisons: Blindfold vs. Rapid, Blindfold vs. FIDE, and Rapid vs. FIDE. Somewhat surprisingly, the FIDE rankings correlated most strongly with the Blindfold rather than with the Rapid rankings, even though both the FIDE and Rapid results involved games played with sight of a chessboard and the Blindfold games did not. All the different correlations were highly statistically reliable, but the strongest one was between FIDE and Blindfold; the next highest was between FIDE and Rapid, and the weakest was between Blindfold and Rapid. For those readers who are familiar with correlational techniques in statistics , the FIDE vs. Blindfold correlation for player rankings was +.84, for FIDE vs. Rapid +.76, and for Blindfold vs. Rapid +.72.

It is intriguing to speculate as to why a player’s world ranking (FIDE) in regular, “classical” chess would correlate best with his or her blindfold ranking, rather than with his or her regular rapid play. We offer one possibility and we welcome other suggestions from readers: Players may well be more cautious or careful in blindfold play than in rapid play with sight of the chessboard and thus try riskier lines of play in the latter, leading to more variable outcomes. (Recall the advice of world-class blindfold players like Alekhine who recommended that one “keep it simple” when playing without sight of the board). The fact that in the Amber tourneys the correlation between the Blindfold and Rapid conditions was relatively low (+.72) would be consistent with essentially the same kind of argument. At any rate, and speaking more loosely, you can predict a grandmaster’s FIDE ranking better from his Blindfold ranking than from his Rapid ranking.

We thank Mr. Sangalang for his careful and extensive work making the above calculations. Readers with questions or critical comments should send them to him or us via the “Comments” boxes below this blog. All of them will be published and answered.

Here is a direct link to a free preview of the audio interview with Eliot Hearst.

The ICC site features more than 100 other interviews with various chess personalities.

The current women’s world champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk, has stated that she could probably manage three or four blindfold games at the same time, but has never really tried to play more than three (see her September 7, 2009 blog at www.chessblog.com). Apparently these three were not played under well-controlled, serious conditions, but were relatively informal. Therefore it seems very likely that the 5-board display recently given by U.S. Women’s Champion Anna Zatonskih is the first instance of an organized, refereed, formal multi-board simultaneous blindfold display by a woman. It was played in St. Louis in October, 2009 just before the start of the U.S. Women’s Championship, which was won by the defending champion, Anna herself, who has now won that championship three times. Throughout her exhibition Anna actually wore a blindfold, which was used for its dramatic effect since all her opponents were behind her and so she could not see any of the board positions anyway.

Woman GM Jennifer Shahade, one of the organizers of all the events connected with the championship (she did not enter the competition this time), devised a very original and clever idea to further promote blindfold chess during the festivities in St. Louis—a scheme that involved all 10 entrants in the tourney playing a single blindfold game together! In drawing numbers to determine the round-robin pairings in the championship, a necessary preliminary in all such tourneys, each woman picked a scarf from one of ten available. The players made their choices in a predetermined random order. Each scarf had a hidden number stitched on it, which would be the number assigned the player who chose it. Then the 10 players were blindfolded and sat in a row of numbered chairs that alternated in color. Number 1 started the group blindfold game by calling out her move (White’s first move) and then Number 2, seated next to Number 1, responded with Black’s first move, and so on, with the odd-numbered players composing the White team and the even-numbered players the Black team. The game was played rapidly and Black won eventually when a White player blundered away a queen. The White team had to resign and the crowd watching this spectacle gave all 10 women a standing ovation.

A video of the arrangement at the exhibition, including some vocal comments from Anna at the conclusion of play, follows. The video was filmed by Macauley Peterson of chess.fm and is also available at blip.tv:

Here are the five games from the display, which took about two hours. In my opinion Anna made no real mistakes in the entire event. She played rather cautiously and took very few risks, which is generally a good strategy in multi-board simultaneous blindfold exhibitions, anyway. Note that all five opponents were males! (Jennifer Shahade tells me that they had planned to include at least one strong woman player among the opposition but their first choice got sick and other available women were registered for a different event. The organizing committee then figured that from a feminist point of view it might even be more striking to have only male opponents. This decision could have backfired if Anna had scored poorly in the display, but she won all five games). The USCF ratings of the opponents ranged from approximately 1500-1800.

Anna Zatonskih - Nathan Phan
October 3, 2009, Board 1 (of 5)
French Defense C08

1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.exd5 exd5 5.Ngf3 Nf6 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Bxd7+ Nbxd7 8.0–0 Be7 9.dxc5 Nxc5 10.Nb3 0–0 11.c3 Re8 12.Be3 b6 13.Qc2 Qc7 14.Rad1 Rad8 15.Rfe1 Bf8 16.Bg5 Nce4 17.Bh4 Rd6 18.Nbd4 Qd7 19.Bxf6 Rxf6 20.c4 Bb4 21.Re2 Rc8 22.Nb3 Rxc4 23.Qxc4 dxc4 24.Rxd7 cxb3 25.a3 Nc5 26.Rd8#. 1–0

Anna Zatonskih - Matt Lodge
October 3, 2009, Board 2 (of 5)
Queen’s Pawn Game A56

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.e3 Nc6 4.d5 Nb4 5.a3 Qa5 6.Nc3 e6 7.Bd2 Na6 8.e4 exd5 9.Nxd5 Qd8 10.Nxf6+ Qxf6 11.Bc3 Qc6 12.Bd3 Nc7 13.Ne2 Ne6 14.0–0 Bd6 15.f4 0–0 16.e5 Be7 17.f5 Nc7 18.f6 Bxf6 19.exf6 b6 20.fxg7 Bb7 21.Nf4 Ne6 22.Bxh7+. 1-0

Anna Zatonskih - Stephen Zhang
October 3, 2009, Board 3 (of 5)
King’s Indian Attack E17

1.d4 Nf6 2.g3 e6 3.Bg2 d5 4.Nf3 Be7 5.0–0 0–0 6.b3 b6 7.c4 Bb7 8.Qc2 Nbd7 9.Rd1 Rc8 10.Nc3 c5 11.dxc5 Rxc5 12.Ba3 Rc8 13.Bxe7 Qxe7 14.cxd5 Nxd5 15.Nxd5 Bxd5 16.Qb2 Nf6 17.Rac1 Rfd8 18.a3 Rc6 19.Rxc6 Bxc6 20.Rc1 Ba8 21.b4 h6 22.h3 Qe8 23.Qc2 Bd5 24.Qc7 Rd7 25.Qc8 Rd8 26.Qc2 Be4 27.Qb2 Bd5 28.g4 Rc8 29.Ne1 Rxc1 30.Qxc1 Bxg2 31.Kxg2 Qd8 32.Nd3 Qd5+ 33.f3 g5 34.Qc7 Qa2 35.Kf2 Qxa3 36.Ne5 Nxg4+ 37.hxg4. 1–0

Anna Zatonskih - Bob Heller
October 3, 2009, Board 4 (of 5) French Defense C10

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Qe2 Be7 7.Nf3 c5 8.Nxf6+ Nxf6 9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.Bg5 0–0 11.0–0–0 Qe7 12.Ne5 h6 13.h4 Bd4 14.c3 Bxe5 15.Qxe5 Re8 16.Rh3 Nd7 17.Qe3 Qc5 18.Qxc5 Nxc5 19.Bb5 Bd7 20.Bxd7 Nxd7 21.Rxd7 hxg5 22.hxg5 Rab8 23.Rhd3 a5 24.Rc7 b5 25.Rdd7 Rf8 26.g6 b4 27.c4 a4 28.Rxf7 Rxf7 29.Rxf7 Rc8 30.b3 axb3 31.axb3 Rb8 32.Re7 Kf8 33.Rf7+ Kg8 34.Kd2 Rb6 35.Ke3 e5 36.g3 Rxg6 37.Rb7 Rf6 38.Rxb4 Kf7 39.c5 Rc6 40.Rb7+ Kf8 41.b4 Ke8 42.Rxg7 Kd8 43.Ke4. 1–0

Anna Zatonskih – Rex Sinquefield
October 3, 2009, Board 5 (of 5)
Sicilian Defense B20

1.e4 c5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Nc6 4.d3 Bg7 5.f4 d6 6.Nf3 Bg4 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Nd4 9.Qd1 e6 10.0–0 Ne7 11.c3 Ndc6 12.Be3 0–0 13.Nd2 Rc8 14.Bf2 b6 15.g4 f5 16.Bh4 Bf6 17.Bxf6 Rxf6 18.a4 a5 19.Qb3 Qd7 20.exf5 gxf5 21.g5 Rg6 22.h4 Kh8 23.Rae1 d5 24.Re2 Re8 25.Qxb6 Qd6 26.Qb3 Rb8 27.Qc2 Re8 28.Qc1 Nc8 29.Nf3 e5 30.fxe5 Nxe5 31.Nxe5 Rxe5 32.Rxe5 Qxe5 33.Qf4 Qxf4 34.Rxf4 Ne7 35.Rf2 Re6 36.Kf1 Re3 37.Re2 d4 38.Kf2 f4 39.Be4 Kg7 40.Kf1 Nc8 41.Rf2 Nd6 42.cxd4 Nxe4 43.dxe4 Rxe4 44.dxc5 Rc4 45.c6 Rxc6 46.Rxf4 Rc1+ 47.Ke2 Rc2+ 48.Kf3 Rxb2 49.Kg4 Rb4 50.Kf5 Rxf4+ 51.Kxf4 Kg6 52.Kg4 Kg7 53.h5 h6 54.g6 Kf6 55.Kf4 Kg7 56.Ke4 Kf6 57.Kd5 Kg7 58.Kc5. 1–0

A good number of colorful photos (snapped by Betsy Dynako)and more about the blindfold exhibition, the drawing-of-lots setup followed by the 10-person blindfold game, and other festivities can be found in Jennifer Shahade’s article on the USCF website. All of the events were sponsored by the Chess Club and Scholastic Chess Center of St. Louis, founded and funded primarily by Rex Sinquefield, who gave Anna Zatonskih her toughest battle (see Game 5 above).

The NYH reporter first asked Zukertort to explain the method by which he is able to play a number of blindfold games at once:

I was first taught the moves on a chessboard in 1860, when I was eighteen years old. I was at college studying the natural sciences. Soon after that I went to the University of Breslau, where there was a chess club, and where I was beaten nine out of every ten games I played. This was in June, 1861. Then I began to study chess — in fact, I became infatuated with the game. I played in the day time and read chess books at night. By the following February there was no man living who could give me the odds of a knight. The great Anderssen was in Breslau, and we played together a great deal. In a series of twenty-four games, in which he gave me the odds of a knight, I won twenty and drew two.

In reading the chess books so much I discovered my capacity for carrying on a game as I read it, without looking at a board, in much the same way as a musician might read music. I cultivated the faculty, and finding that I could play one game blindfold I tried to play two games, and was successful. In January, 1868, I gave my first public exhibition of blindfold playing. I played seven games at that time, and afterward nine games. I never played eight that I can remember. Gradually I ran the number up from nine to twelve, and finally to sixteen. That is as many games as I have ever attempted blindfold, and no other player has ever done as much. I played the sixteen in the West End Chess Club of London December 11, 1876, against sixteen of the strongest amateur players of the St. George’s and West End clubs. I won twelve, drew three and lost but one. The single winner was an American gentleman living in London, Mr. W. Ballard.

The reporter asked: Can you play more than sixteen games, do you think?

I have no doubt of it. I think there is no mental limit to the number of games I might play, but there is a physical limit; it is very wearing work.

The reporter: Do you play simply from memory?

I have a way of photographing a board in my mind, and — the boards being numbered — when one board is called the photograph of the position of the men on that board comes instantly before my mind while the last board as quickly disappears. I never see two boards before me even for an instant. My mind at such times is like a wall upon which a magic lantern casts a shadow, and just as the pictures are changed in the magic lantern so the photographs of the chess boards change before my eyes.

The reporter: Do you adopt a certain set of openings when you undertake to play a number of blindfold games, so arranging the series that you may know what style of opening was played on a particular board?

No, I go entirely by the numbers of the boards. Each game becomes identified in my mind with a certain number, call that number and I see the game. The most difficult part of blindfold playing is not, as many suppose, toward the conclusion of the games but in the beginning of them, where the pieces are apt to be similarly placed on two or more boards. The further the games progress the easier it is to recall them. A board always comes into my mind precisely as I left it after the last move. I never have to go back over the moves in order to find out how the men stand, but I can at any time give the moves in the regular order in which they were made or the reverse order. I played twelve games in Glasgow blindfolded in January, 1873, and the play was adjourned to attend a dinner given in my honor. After the dinner and before continuing the games I named the precise position of every man, black and white, on each of the twelve boards.

The reporter: Why is it that many good chess players not only cannot play blindfolded, but are unable to comprehend how another man does it?

I suppose it is a difference in the powers of memory. My memory had a peculiar training. When I was seven years old, and before I could read or write, I was able to demonstrate such a problem as the square of the hypothenuse or to work out a simple equation entirely from memory. My godfather was a professor of mathematics, and he had great faith in the value of training the memory. I myself believe that the memory may be trained in the same way that we can train our bodies. My memory is good in other lines than chess. Whatever I read a few times I commit to memory. I have not read Roman history since I was in the University; but I am ready to stand an examination in Roman history today. I believe I have forgotten none of the dates. I can play over now in my mind the games of chess that I played in the London tournament. I am the editor of the London Chess Monthly, and I compose nearly all my analytical articles and notes upon games of chess while travelling and with no board near me.

The reporter: Can you play as well blindfolded as you can with a board?

No, but I believe if I were to practice blindfolded playing more that I could conduct one game without a board better than with it. I could concentrate my mind more entirely by not seeing the board.

The reporter: How many blindfold players of distinction are there now living?

Not many. There is Blackburne, of England, who has played twelve games, and a young lawyer named Alexander Fritz, in Berlin, who has played ten games. Louis Paulsen was once a great blindfolded player, but has had to give it up with advancing age. As he said to me, “The corners of the board are slipping away from me.”

ADDENDUM: A few comments/corrections from E. Hearst:

A minor error involves the exact date that Zukertort gave for his 16-board world-record-setting display in 1876. It was not held on December 11, but on December 16 and 21. The more important point is that there was an interruption of five days after the first five hours of play, unusual for world-record performances, which typically involve one long session on a particular day, sometimes with a relatively short break for a meal.

The dates and number of opponents for Zukertort’s first few blindfold exhibitions do not match the ones given in his well-documented biography by Tomasz Lissowski (see p. 45 of our book for the correct details).

It is interesting that Zukertort reports seeing “photographs” of each game as his exhibitions proceed. Most blindfold champions report much vaguer, abstract representations of each position, as summarized in several places in our book.

Zukertort’s assertions about his ability to recall exact details and dates from subjects outside of chess (e.g., Roman history) that he studied many years before ought to be viewed with skepticism. As our book describes (pp.43-44), he was an “inveterate braggart” about his abilities and achievements outside of chess. Chess historians David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld remark on the “absurd boasts he made about his non-chess skills.”

Most readers will have guessed that a “magic lantern” was the forerunner of the modern slide projector. In the mid-19th century William and Frederick Langenheim invented a technique for displaying photographic images that replaced the older, more primitive magic lanterns. They called their device a hyalotype and used it mostly to entertain paying audiences with picture shows. Eventually the apparatus was employed more in educational lectures.

A. Alekhine-F. Sämisch      B30
Berlin,1923 (Both players blindfolded)

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Be2 e6 4.0–0 d6 5.d4 cxd4 6.Nxd4 Nf6 7.Bf3 Ne5 8.c4 Nxf3+ 9.Qxf3 Be7 10.Nc3 0–0 11.b3 Nd7 12.Bb2 Bf6 13.Rad1 a6 14.Qg3 Qc7 15.Kh1 Rd8 16.f4 b6 17.f5 Be5

18.fxe6!! Bxg3 19.exf7+ Kh8 20.Nd5! 1–0

Writing in The Washington Post (August 31, 2009) Lubomir Kavalek notes the absence of Australian blindfold masters in the book (which is especially disappointing to me because my children are half Australian!). One person Kavalek lists is John Kellner (1931- ) who holds the Australian record for number of opponents faced in a simultaneous blindfold display. He set this record in 1973 when taking on 17 players at once. He is also known for his prowess in postal chess, where in 1968 he achieved the title of International Master of Correspondence Chess. If readers from Down Under or elsewhere can supply us with details of his record-setting exhibition and other accomplishments in blindfold chess, we will be glad to publish them on this website. Please insert your remarks in the email Comment section below this blog.

A more internationally-known Australian blindfold player is Grandmaster Ian Rogers (b. 1960, GM 1985), who in addition to his triumphs in regular chess has given numerous displays of 12 boards or fewer without sight of any of his opponents. Kavalek published a blindfold game of his against Josef Horejs, played in Prague in 1996. Rogers’s score in that exhibition was 9 wins and 1 draw against 10 club players rated up to 2300.The display took about 4 hours. Here is the score of that game:

1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Nc6 7.Rb1 e5 8.Qa4 Qc7 9.Bxc6+ Qxc6 10.Qxc6+ bxc6 11.Nf3 Bd6 12.d3 Be6 13.c4 0-0 14.Ng5 Rab8 15.Rxb8 Rxb8 16.Nxe6 fxe6 17.Kd1 Kf7 18.Kc2 Ke7 19.Be3 Kf6 20.Rb1 Rxb1 21.Kxb1 g6 22.Kc2 Ke7 23.g4 Kd7 24.h3 Ke7 25.Kd2 Kf6 26.f3 Ke7 27.Bg5+ Kd7 28.Ke3 Bc7 (and then seeing that White will pick up his e-pawn, Black resigned).

Reviewing our book on ChessCafe.com. on August 23, 2009, Olimpiu Urcan noted a 19th-century German who was a promising blindfold player. He was Berthold Suhle (b.1837 in Poland, but who spent most of his life in Germany; he died in 1904).Urcan gives the following quote from The Chess Player’s Chronicle (1859, pages 71-72):

In Germany a new star has also appeared on the Chess horizons, which threatens to dim the light of the Morphy star. Herr Berthold Suhle, in Bonn, twenty-one years of age, has completely defeated several of the German Chess celebrities, amongst others the well-known player Captain Bothe in Cologne, and the strongest player of Venice, Signor Torliko. In blindfold play he has successfully rivalled the performance of Morphy and Harrwitz, having on 20th December last [1858] played eight players at the same time, without seeing the board, and, in a series of 295 moves, won six games and drawn two.

The same journal supplied the score of one of the games played by Suhle against Mr. Kr. in this display, as follows:

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 h5 6.Bc4 Rh7 7.d4 Bh6 8.Nc3 c6 9.Nd3 Qf6 10.e5 Qf5 1l.Nc5 Qg6 12.Bd3 Qg7 13.Bxh7 Qxh7 14. N3e4 b6 15.Nd6+ Kd8 16.Nd3 f6 17.Bxf4 Ba6 18.Qd2 Bf8 19. Rf1 Bxd6 20.exd6 Qe4+ 21.Qe3 f5 22.Qxe4 fxe4 23.Bg5+ Ke8 Here Suhle announced mate in ten moves with the continuation 24.0-0-0! c5 25.Rde1 Bb7 26.Ne5 Bd5 27.Ng6 Bf7 28.Rxe4+ Ne7 29.Bxe7 Nc6 30.Bg5+ Ne7 31.Bxe7 …. 32.Bg5+ Be6 33.Rf8 checkmate. [Since some of these 10 moves are not absolutely forced, it is doubtful whether Suhle was justified in announcing a mate in 10 moves. Perhaps Black could have lasted longer than that and perhaps Suhle could have mated more quickly than in 10 moves. Ask your computer!: E. Hearst]

Urcan goes on to note that Suhle drew a match with Adolf Anderssen in Berlin in 1864 and became an active chess writer in later years. Urcan does not know whether Suhle continued to give frequent blindfold displays after the above event, but it is significant that by December 1858, Louis Paulsen had already played 8-, 10-, and 12-board blindfold displays and Morphy had given two exhibitions of 8 boards each. So Suhle did not set a new world record in this display, but he did equal Morphy’s number.

We thank Kavalek and Urcan for providing information about the blindfold achievements of the three players we have mentioned above. Whether they deserved a reasonable amount of space in our book we will let readers and book critics decide, especially since we had strict word limitations imposed by our publisher.

This was first posted at ChessBase, which has quite a bit of background about the video.

Back in the late seventies, Fred Townsend organized the New England Blindfold Championship in CT. It had 6 entries, none from CT! I tied for first, but had lost the games long ago. That was the only such event I have seen since.

We would be very interested to hear from other readers who know of blindfold tourneys that have been held but are now “forgotten.” Please send such items for posting on this website by using the contact email beneath the above item.

Email exchanges with Lang have provided us with interesting information about Lang himself and his recent exhibition. Lang, 39 and married, has had little time to play in regular tournaments because he must devote himself to his computer programming business in Günzburg, 60 miles west of Munich in Bavaria, as well as to his growing family: a son,7, with another child due in October. He keeps up with chess by reading many relevant books and magazines without any chessboard available, in his bed or bathroom. “Blindfold is just like I’m used to studying chess”, he says.

Lang claims that his memory is not exceptional at all, but quite chess-focussed (this is typical of expert blindfold players). He jokes that he always forgets what his wife has asked him to do, and that when he puts frozen pretzels in the oven, 80% of the time they are burnt to “coal” before he remembers he put them there. He admits to a weakness in remembering faces and names, but chess games “stick in his head” and he even recalls parts of blitz games he played when he was a youngster.

His introduction to blindfold chess was unusual. Around 15 years ago, he was playing his friend, the now IM Mathias Duppel, a series of regular games in a café in Stuttgart when the waiter told them that chess playing was not allowed there. Their first reaction was to leave and never enter that café again, but Mathias suggested they play a 10-board blindfold simultaneous match against each other. No one could prohibit that! Lang won, 6-4, and not long afterward began to give standard blindfold displays, starting with 4 and ending up with 13 in 1998. He had to stop there and hardly played any chess at all over the next decade because he started his company, married, and eventually his son was born.

However, his vicarious interest in blindfold play continued and not long ago he decided to try to beat his previous personal record of 13 by playing 15. He says he was very nervous before that display a few weeks ago and slept poorly the night before the exhibition. But it turned out to be relatively easy. The opposition ranged in strength from around 900 to 2074, according to the German national rating system. The physical arrangement for the display was different from virtually all previous serious exhibitions over past centuries. Lang did not want to be blindfolded, sit with his back to the players, or be located in a separate room; he preferred to face the players and chat with them as the event progressed. So a cardboard barrier was set up that prevented him from seeing the chess positions but enabled him to see his opponents’ faces and converse with them as they announced their moves. He thinks this arrangement may have permitted him to more easily keep the various games separate in his memory because he could associate a face and a voice with a particular game.

Like other experienced blindfold players, he does not visualize boards and pieces, but only “spots” and “functions”. “For instance, I know there’s something called a rook on a1 and I know where it can move from there in that particular position. That’s all. There are no colors, no shapes, nothing. When I was younger, I used to see the board with yellow and black squares, but now even that has gone”

The display lasted a little over 8 hours and Lang scored 5 wins, only 1 loss, and 9 draws. At the end, because the four remaining players were getting tired, they simultaneously offered him draws. Although he had the advantage in two of the games and the other two were fairly equal, he decided to accept. In his next exhibition he thinks it would be a good idea to take a break of about a half-hour after five hours or so, to give both the remaining players and himself a rest period.

Lang expects to try to break the German blindfold simul record in November by playing at least 23 opponents and he has already contacted the potential organizers of the display in a town near Stuttgart to arrange the details. We wish him luck and thank him for taking the time to give us the above information about himself and blindfold chess.

Finally, here are two games from his recent 15-board exhibition:

M. Lang - H. Reif
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e4 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Qxd4 7.Bxb4 Qxe4+ 8.Be2 Qxg2 9.Qd6 Nd7 10.0-0-0! Qg5+ 11.f4 Qe7 12.Qd4 e5 13.Qd2 Qe6 14.Nf3 f6 15.fxe5 c5 16.exf6 Ngxf6 17.Ng5 Qb6 18.Bh5+! Nxh5 19.Rhe1+ Kf8 20.Bxc5+ (Black now loses by force; if 20…Qxc5 21.Ne6+ and if 20…Nxc5 21.Qd8+)  1-0

M. Lang - E.Fischer
1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.e4 Nf6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.0-0 e5 8.Be3 Ng4 9.Bg5 f6 10.Bc1 a6 11.h3 Nh6 12.dxe5 Nxe5 13.Nxe5 fxe5 14.Be3 Be6 15.c5 dxc5 16.Bxc5 Rf7 17.Qc1 Rd7 18.Be3 Nf7 19.Na4 b6 20.b3 c5 21.Qc2 Qc7 22.Rfd1 Bf8 23.Rxd7 Bxd7 24.Nc3 Bc6 25.Bc4 b5 26.Bd5 Rc8 27.a4 b4 28.Bxc6 Qxc6 29.Nd5 a5 30.Rc1 Nd6 31.f3 c4 21.Nb6 Rc7 33.bxc4 Nb7 34.Nd5 Rc8 35.Qb2 Nc5 (This was one of the final four remaining games that were agreed drawn at this point. White can maintain the better position by say, 36.Rd1, but after more than 8 hours of play both the players and exhibitor were willing to stop here!)  1/2-1/2

What has the sensational exhibition to do with beautiful chess? Why this craving for the red fire, the jugglery, the purposeless mental acrobatism that was fatal to Pillsbury? The desire for such exhibitions denotes a low level of intelligence.

Why should civilized chess amateurs exhibit the tastes of the bricklayer’s hodman or the British farm labourer?

Let the blindfold business die with poor Pillsbury. If another great chess master should arise in America, let him not be ‘butchered to make a gobe-mouche holiday’.

(Comment by E. Hearst: As our book substantiates in several places, playing large simultaneous blindfold chess exhibitions almost surely had little or nothing to do with Pillsbury’s death at the age of 33. Reliable reports indicate that the major cause of his death was from the effects of syphilis, a disease he contracted while a participant in the St. Petersburg tournament of 1895-96.)

Adriaan de Groot (1914-2006), often considered the “father of chess psychology”, was a pioneer in developing methods for studying the important factors in chess skill. His work in the 1930’s and 40’s was a major inspiration for the work of later psychologists who investigated pattern recognition, memory, calculation, experience, and other aspects of the ability to play chess well or badly. One method that he used in his research was to present players of varying skills with a position for just a few seconds and then to remove it from sight and ask his subjects to reproduce the entire position about 30 seconds later. Details, results, and conclusions of these studies, as well as several subsequent ones by other experimenters starting in the 1970’s, are described in our book (Part II : The Psychology of Blindfold Chess).

Here is one of de Groot’s test positions for you to test yourself on. The subjects who had to recall this position after viewing it briefly and then being asked to reconstruct it about a half-minute later included a grandmaster (Max Euwe), a weak master (deGroot himself!), an expert player, and an average player. Although he used only these four subjects, the general results he obtained have been repeated many times by subsequent experimenters in the course of doing different kinds of research. There are 22 pieces in this position and his scoring of their performance was based mainly on how many pieces were placed correctly after the intervening period during which the pieces had been removed from sight. Euwe recalled all the pieces and the correct squares on which they had been located (100%: score of 22), de Groot (score of 21), the expert (score of 16), and the average player (score of 9). Thus the ability to recall this position, as well as many others tested, depended greatly on the strength of the player, a result that has been repeated many times afterwards in a variety of studies examining different factors involved in chess skill.

Perhaps the most interesting result from this type of test situation is how well grandmasters can perform; most of them reconstruct quite complicated positions with virtually no errors after their brief exposure.

[Scroll down to see the diagram: Please prepare before viewing the diagram by arranging an empty board some distance from your computer with pieces ready to set up 30 sec after you study the diagram for 5-10 seconds. Reconstruct the diagrammed position on this board as accurately as you can to compare yourself to master and expert performance]

Here we present three games, two gems from the New York display and another from the Paris exhibition, in which Alekhine probably made the worst blunder he ever made in a blindfold event. So no one is perfect! The games are from our book (Numbers 140, 142, and 155 in our games section). The annotations are ours and one source for each game is given at the game’s end.

GAME 140
A. Alekhine — M. Pinkus
New York, April 27, 1924 (26 opponents)
Sicilian Defense
B74

1. e4 c5 We should point out that Milton Pinkus, not Albert S. Pinkus, was Alekhine’s opponent in this game. They were brothers and Albert was one of the U. S.’ s best players in the 1920s, 1940s, and 1950s. Albert (1903-1984) won his game from Alekhine in this 1924 blindfold display, one of only five losses he suffered against the very strong opposition. Unfortunately we could not locate the score of that game. Milton was a strong player who rarely participated in organized tournaments. 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Be2 g6 7. 0–0 Bg7 8. Be3 0–0 9. Nb3 Bd7 10. f4 Rc8 11. Bf3 Re8 12. Qd2 Alekhine stated that this move was “inexact” and that 12. Qe2 was to be preferred, the main reason being that Black can now reply with 12. ... Na5!. After 12. Qe2 this move would not have been any good because of 13. Bxa7. 12. ... Ng4? A mistake since it permits 14. f5 and the consequent weakening of Black’s kingside. 13. Bxg4 Bxg4 14. f5! Threatening to win the B on g4 by h3 followed by g4. 14. ... gxf5 15. Bh6 e6 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. h3 Bh5 18. exf5 exf5 19. Nd5! Alekhine considered this his best move in the game. Instead of playing 19. Rxf5 and regaining his sacrificed pawn, he chooses to keep the bishop “imprisoned” on the kingside and to make the square f4 more available for his own pieces. 19. ... Re2 20. Qf4 Bg6 After 20. ... Rxc2 21. Nd4 is very powerful, as is 21. Ne3. 21. Nd4 Nxd4 22. Qxd4+ We have found a problem with the game score from here until the 27th move. In his book On the Road to the World Championship 1923-1927 Alekhine gives the next few moves as 22. ... f6 23. c4 b6 24. b3 Qf8 25. Rad1 Rd8 26. Rfe1 Re5 but the New York chess editor Hermann Helms, as well as Skinner & Verhoeven (1998), give the game’s score as we continue below. The same position is reached by the 27th move in either case. We wonder whether it is possible that Alekhine recalled the game from memory and mixed up the order of moves, since he is believed to have annotated various games blindfolded, without an actual score or board in front of him. Oh, the habits of a blindfold champion! Since we do not know what was the cause of this discrepancy, we refrain from comments until the 27th move is reached. 22. ... Re5 23. c4 Qf8 24. b3 b6 25. Rad1 Rd8 26. Rfe1 f6 At this point we are back on track for the two variants of the game score. 27. Nf4 An ideal square for the knight and threatening Ne6+. 27. ... Qe7 28. Rf1 Re4 29. Qc3 Qe5 30. Qc1 Alekhine states that Black’s last few moves may seem “aggressive” but they have “achieved nothing” because he still possesses crippled pawns and an incarcerated bishop. 30. ... Kf7 31. h4 Playing 31. Rd5 just before this move would have been more efficient in ending the game quickly. 31. ... Qc5+ 32. Kh1 Bh5 33. Rd5 Qc8 34. Nh3 Preparing for the queen to travel to h6. 34. ... Bg6 35. h5 The alternative 35. Qh6 would have been met by the move 35. ... Kg8 36. h5? Rh4. 35. ... Bxh5 36. Rdxf5 Bg6 37. Rxf6+ Kg7 If instead 37. ... Kg8 then 38. Qh6 is overwhelming. 38. Qc3 Kg8 39. Qg3 Rg4 40. Qf2 Be4 41. Nf4 Qb7 Allowing a quick win but after 41. ... Qa8 42. Qe2 Rg5 43. Re6 would win anyway. However, Alekhine does not mention the alternatives 41. ... d5 or ... Re8, which may hold the game for Black.

42. Ne6! Now mate or loss of Black’s queen cannot be stopped. 42. ... Bxg2+ 43. Kh2 Black resigned here. A likely finish is 43. ... Kh8 44. Rf8+ Rxf8 45. Qxf8+ Rg8 46. Qxg8+ followed by mate. 1-0 [Skinner, L. M., & Verhoeven, R. G. P. (1998). Alexander Alekhine’s chess games, 1902-1946. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, p. 229]

GAME 142
A. Alekhine — A. Berman
New York, April 27, 1924 (26 opponents)
Vienna Game (Irregular)
C46

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nxe5 Bxf2+ 5. Kxf2 Nxe5 6. d4 Ng6 7. Bc4 d6 8. Rf1 Be6 9. Bd3 Qf6+ 10. Kg1 Qxd4+ 11. Kh1 c6 12. Qe2 Nf6 13. Be3 Qe5 14. h3 h5 14. ... Nh5 would cause White more problems. 15. Bg1 Ke7 15. ... 0-0 was probably superior to posting the king in the center, especially against Alekhine! 16. Bh2 Qg5 17. Rad1 Ne5 18. Bf4 Qg6 19. Qe1 Really a nice move, allowing the knight to return to e2 and thence to f4 or d4 and also permitting White’s queen to enter on the queenside. 19. ... Ne8 20. Ne2 Perhaps Alekhine did not realize the strength of 20. Nd5+ cxd5 21. Bxe5 dxe5 22. exd5. 20. ... f6 21. Nd4 Rd8 22. Qb4 Rd7 23. Bxe5 fxe5 24. Nf5+ Bxf5 25. exf5 Qf6 26. Bc4 b5 27. Be6 Rb7 28. c4 c5 29. Qa5 Nc7

30. Rxd6! Na8 Of course if 30. ... Kxd6 31. Rd1+ Ke7 32. Rd7+ would give White an excellent game. Good also would have been 31. Qd2+ 31. Rfd1 Obviously White now has a winning position. 31. ... Nb6 32. Qxb5 Rc7 33. Rd7+ Nxd7 34. Rxd7+ Rxd7 35. Qxd7+ Kf8 36. Qc8+ Ke7 37. Qxc5+ Ke8 38. Qc6+ Kf8 39. Qc8+ Ke7 40. Qxh8 Alekhine had hesitated playing to win this rook because Black’s next move seems to give him excellent chances for a draw by perpetual check—with White’s queen so far from the main battleground. 40. ... Qg5 41. f6+ A flashy move but either 41. Qa8 or Bd5 are simpler and would allow White to escape perpetual check by enabling the queen or bishop to return to g2 after White eventually plays g3. 41. ... Qxf6 After 41. ... Kxe6 42. Qxg7 Qc1+ 43. Kh2 Qf4+ 44. Qg3 with a probably winning endgame. On 41. ... gxf6 42. Bd5 would be the appropriate answer. 42. Qxh5 Qf1+ 43. Kh2 Qf4+ 44. Kg1 Qc1+ 45. Kf2 Qxb2+ 46. Kg3 Qc3+ 47. Kh2 Kxe6 48. Qe8+ Kf6 49. Qf8+ Kg6 50. c5 e4 51. Qe8+ Kf5 The moves ... Kf6 or Kh6 would keep the game a better fight. 52. Qf7+ Kg5 53. h4+ Kg4? If Black played 53. ... Kh6 54. Qf4+ Kh7 55. Qxe4+ followed by c6 would win soon. 54. Qg6+ Finally White has a forced win. 54. ... Kf4 55. Qg5# Black fought hard, but… 1–0 [Skinner, L. M., & Verhoeven, R. G. P. (1998). Alexander Alekhine’s chess games, 1902-1946. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, p.229]

GAME 155
A. Alekhine — Ecole Polytechnique Paris
Paris, February 1, 1925 (28 opponents)
Queen’s Pawn Game
D05

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 e6 4. Nc3 c5 5. dxc5 Bxc5 6. a3 0–0 7. b4 Be7 8. Bb2 a6 9. h3 Nc6 10. Be2 b5 11. 0–0 Bb7 12. Nb1 Not really a “retreat” but a way of placing the knight soon on a more effective square, b3. By opening the bishop’s diagonal, the move also helps stop Black from playing e5. 12. ... Rc8 13. Nbd2 Qd6 14. Nb3 Nd7 15. Nfd4 Nce5 16. Na5 Ba8 17. a4 Nc4 18. Nxc4 bxc4 19. b5 Rfe8 20. Bc3 e5 21. Nc6? Throwing away a pawn for nothing. At this point Alekhine must have falsely believed Black’s queen had never moved and still remained on d8. This becomes blatantly obvious in his choice of a 23rd move, but probably also influenced his selection of some previous moves. 21. ... Bxc6 22. bxc6 Rxc6

23. Qxd5?? Probably the biggest one-move blunder ever made in a world-record-setting blindfold display. As noted, Alekhine must simply have forgotten that Black had moved his queen to d6 on his 13th move. If Black’s queen were still at d8,White would have obtained the superior position by this capture. 23. ... Qxd5 Alekhine’s blunder is the kind you would expect to see in players who are just beginning to try blindfold chess and perhaps facing only one or two opponents at once, not 28! 0–1 [Skinner, L. M., & Verhoeven, R. G. P. (1998). Alexander Alekhine’s chess games, 1902-1946. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, p. 232]

GM Levon Aronian of Armenia won the 2008 event, scoring 6.5 points out of 11 in the blindfold half and 8 out of 11 in the rapid half, outdistancing those finishing second by 2.5 points when the two scores were combined (14.5 total points). In the blindfold half he was tied at 6.5 points with GMs Kramnik, Morozevich, and Topalov, and he suffered no losses in a blindfold game. The following ratings do not include this year’s tourney, held just over a month ago, which was again won by Aronian, scoring 7 points out of 11 in both the blindfold half and the rapid half. However, his 14 total points placed him only 0.5 points ahead of the second-place finishers this time! He lost only one blindfold game, whereas all the other participants lost at least two. His total blindfold score was tied by GMs Carlsen and Kramnik.

In Gijssen’s rating calculations he used as a starting point the “normal” FIDE rating that a player had achieved in regular tournaments just before the beginning of his or her first Amber blindfold tourney. This seems reasonable, but a critic might argue that blindfold chess is a different variety of chess from regular chess and using regular FIDE chess ratings gives the highest ranked players a rating advantage to begin with. An alternative might be to have all players start with the same rating, say 2650. However, it is unlikely that the below rankings would be very much different if this second method had been used.

Thirty-seven players played in the 16 events that were taken into consideration in calculating the blindfold ratings. However, some players played in only one or very few of the Amber tourneys. GM Ivanchuk is the only player who competed in every single one of them. Below we list the 2008 blindfold ratings achieved by players who participated in at least three of the events, since scores in only one or two events may not be too meaningful statistically. (Unfortunately, this eliminates powerful young players like Carlsen, Karjakin, and Radjabov, whose first Amber tourneys were in 2007 or 2008.)

1. Morozevich 2811
2. Kramnik 2809
3. Anand 2761
4-5. Aronian 2744
4-5. Svidler 2744
6-7. Leko 2735
6-7. Topalov 2735
8. Shirov 2734
9. Ivanchuk 2707
10. Kamsky 2705
11. Gelfand 2686
12. Karpov 2681
13. Bareev 2667
14. Lautier 2662
15. Almasi 2656
16. Vallejo 2653
17. van Wely 2631
18. Nikolic 2630
19. Piket 2629
20. Polgar, J. 2612
21. Ljubojevic 2579

So far as I know, GM Kasparov is the only top player to refuse all invitations to the Amber tourneys. He said he wanted to stay “mentally well” and was apparently anxious about “going mad” if he played blindfold chess seriously (see pages 126-127 of our book for more discussion of Kasparov’s refusals).

It is interesting to note that the top ranked players in regular chess are clearly also the ones who do best in blindfold chess. Perhaps some reader would like to examine the average ratings of the above players since 1993 in regular chess and see how closely they correlate with their blindfold ratings.