Blindfold chess

Did You Know?

• A new European record was set in November 2010 by German Marc Lang in Sontheim, playing 35 opponents with 19 wins, 13 draws, and 3 losses over 23 hours.
• Lang improved the world record in November 2011 in Sontheim by playing 46 opponents simultaneously and blindfolded, with 25 wins, 19 draws, and 2 losses.
• On December 3, 2016, Timur Gareyev played 48 opponents with a mask before his eyes and sitting on an exercise bike, resulting in 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses.

Early history

Blindfold chess has been around since the early days of the game. The first recorded player to compete without a physical board was Sa'id bin Jubair, who lived in the Middle East from 665 to 714. In Europe, playing without sight became a way for strong players to give weaker opponents a handicap or to show off their own skill. H. J. R. Murray’s history of chess describes another form of unseen play: two Central Asian horsemen riding side by side, calling out moves to each other with no board or pieces.

The earliest known blindfold event in Europe happened in Florence in 1266. In 1783, the French master André Danican Philidor could play up to three blindfold games at once, a feat he taught himself by visualizing the board in bed when he could not sleep. Paul Morphy gave a blindfold exhibition in 1858 against Paris’s eight strongest players, winning six and drawing two. Other early masters included Louis Paulsen, Joseph Henry Blackburne (who managed 16 simultaneous blindfold games), and the first world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, who in 1867 played six blindfold games in Dundee, winning three and drawing three.

These players often used such exhibitions as a reliable source of income. Ellen Gilbert, active in the 1870s, is one of the first known women to play blindfold. Records kept growing. In 1900, Harry Nelson Pillsbury played 20 blindfold games at once in Philadelphia.

20th-century history

In 1924, Alexander Alekhine took on 26 opponents at once in a blindfold exhibition at New York's Alamac Hotel, facing very strong players like Isaac Kashdan and Hermann Steiner. He won 16, lost 5, and drew 5, likely the toughest blindfold event ever staged. The following February in Paris, he played 28 teams of four players each, scoring 22 wins, 3 losses, and 3 draws. That same year, Richard Réti topped this by playing 29 opponents simultaneously in São Paulo, though he later joked about his poor memory after leaving his briefcase behind.

On July 16, 1934, in Chicago, Alekhine set a new world record with 32 blindfold games, winning 19, losing 4, and drawing 9; Edward Lasker served as referee. Then, on September 20, 1937, in Edinburgh, George Koltanowski played 34 blindfold games over 13 hours, winning 24 and losing 10. Miguel Najdorf later broke that record twice. His first attempt in Rosario, Argentina, in 1943, involved 40 opponents, with 36 wins, 1 draw, and 3 losses.

He organized it to gain publicity and let his family know he was alive after staying in Argentina following the 1939 Chess Olympiad, as the German invasion of Poland had begun. He raised the record to 45 opponents in São Paulo in 1947, achieving 39 wins, 4 draws, and 2 losses. Koltanowski initially disputed Najdorf's record, claiming that with access to scoresheets and multiple opponents per board he could have handled 100 games, but modern historians accept Najdorf's feats as legitimate.

Hungarian Janos Flesch claimed a record in Budapest in 1960, playing 52 opponents for 31 wins, 3 draws, and 18 losses, but the attempt was questionable because he could verbally recount game scores, and it lasted only about five hours with many short games. In 1960, Koltanowski also set a notable record in San Francisco, playing 56 consecutive blindfold games at ten seconds per move over nine hours, winning 50 and losing 6. He was especially known for performing blindfold Knight's Tours on boards up to 192 squares.

Psychology

Blindfold chess has long fascinated psychologists because it appears to demand exceptional memory and spatial reasoning. This interest began with Alfred Binet in 1893, was furthered by grandmaster and psychoanalyst Reuben Fine in 1965, and continued with numerous scientific studies in the late 1900s. The key findings indicate that skilled blindfold players rely on their deep chess knowledge and the capacity to perform visuo-spatial operations mentally.

Modern status

Blindfold chess tournaments are now held year-round, but the most famous one was the Melody Amber event in Monte Carlo, which ran until 2011. Between 1996 and 2007, top players Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Alexei Shirov, and Alexander Morozevich traded wins at Amber, showing great skill in this format. Levon Aronian later won the tournament three times and also took the blindfold gold at the 2012 SportAccord World Mind Games. A key reference on the subject is the 2009 book "Blindfold Chess, History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records and Important Games" by Eliot Hearst and John Knott, which earned the Fred Cramer Award for Best Chess Book of 2009.