Illustration in Harper's Weekly, November 1858, of Paul Morphy playing eight simultaneous games blindfold is from from Fred Wilson's book "A Picture History of Chess".
This month on Chess Books Recaptured, guest co-host Jerry Wells and I do a deep dive on the topic of Blindfold Chess. Jerry is an Arkansas-based school teacher, chess coach, and dedicated adult improver who has emphasized blindfold chess in his study regimen. The first half of the show is devoted to discussing the definitive work on blindfold chess, called Blindfold Chess, History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, and Important Games. The book is by NM Eliot Hearst and John Knott, and it was clearly a labor of love from two passionate chess enthusiasts. Following our conversation about this detailed historical tome, Jerry and I summarize and share many other resources you all can check out if you are interested in improving your own blindfold and visualization skills. We’ve got lots of detailed links and show notes for this one, so please read on to find them along with timestamps.
Click here to download the episode
0:00- We begin by learning a bit about the background of our guest co-host, Jerry Wells, and about why he was interested in the book Blindfold Chess, History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, and Important Games, by Eliot Hearst and John Knott, and why he has worked on his own blindfold game.
Mentioned: Perpetual Chess 191 with GM Daniel Naroditsky, Link for forthcoming blindfold study book by Martin Justesen: https://saychessblog.com/100-blindfold-endgame-studies/
10:30- As we discuss, Blindfold Chess is primarily available in paperback from Macfarland Publishing. There are no e-books available.
Mentioned: GM Richard Reti, GM George Koltanowski
12:00- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessable.com. One way to work on your visualization skills is through Chessable’s excellent, Visualize series by Benedictine. Check it out here: https://www.chessable.com/visualise-1/course/25695/
13:00- We read the opening paragraphs of the book and dive into its contents.
Mentioned: GM Alexander Alekhine, Alfred Binet, Harry Pillsbury, GM Timur Garyev, GM Andy Soltis, John Knott’s essay on Timur Garyev’s Blindfold Simul Record: https://www.blindfoldchess.net/blog/2017/07/timur-gareyev-and-blindfold-chess . NM Christopher Chabris, Andre Philidor, Lionel Kieseritzky, Louis Paulson, Paul Morphy, Joseph Blackburne, Johannes Zukertort, GM Patrick Wolff
31:00- A recurring question in the book is whether or not performing many blindfold simuls can drive you insane? What did the authors conclude?
Mentioned: Harry Pillsbury George Koltanowski
35:30- We discuss a few of the other notable players mentioned in the book.
Mentioned: GM Miguel Najdorf, GM Ken Rogoff, The simul Polgars, GM Robert Hungaski
40:00- We answer a Patreon mailbag question about the ranking of George Koltanowski in the pantheon of blindfold players throughout chess history.
Mentioned: GM Hans Ree, GM Erich Eliskases
48:30- We discuss part 2 of the book, which synthesizes a lot of the research available regarding how chess players learn, and whether they have superior memories, etc.
Mentioned: NM Christopher Chabris, The Melody Amber Blindfold Tournaments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_chess_tournament, GM Peter Svidler, GM Vasyl Ivanchuk, GM Aman Hambleton
56:30- We share a few of our favorite quotes from the book.
Mentioned: GM Richard Reti, GM Reuben Fine. GM Alexander Alekhine
1:03:00- We briefly discuss a few of the highlight games from the book.
Mentioned: Alekhine-Schwartz 1926- https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012453
Koltanowski-Burnett 1937- https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1080667
The Polgar game Jerry mentions is not available online. :(
1:05:00 What blindfold-playing tips are shared within the book?
Mentioned: George Koltanowski, Branco Tchabritch, GM Anthony Miles, IM John Watson
1:11:00- We synthesize a lot of Blindfold Tips from other chess books and other resources.
Here are the resources we discuss:
Improve Your Chess Now by GM Jonathan Tisdall
Noir Chess- http://www.noirchess.com/
Chessvis- https://www.chessvis.com/
IM Danny Rensch’s- Achieving Full Board Awareness and Nivana videos- https://www.chess.com/video/player/achieving-full-board-awareness
https://www.chess.com/video/player/achieving-full-board-nirvana
Chess Steps Thinking Ahead Volume 2-
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Chess-Thinking-Chess-Steps-Stappenmethode/dp/9077275991
Visualize 1 on Chessable by Benedictine-
https://www.chessable.com/visualise-1/course/25695/
ChessFox Visualwize-
https://chessfox.com/discover-visualwize/
NM Elliott Neff’s Step by Step Blindfold Tips- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4U336yifjg
NM Elliott Neff on Perpetual Chess- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-94-uscf-master-and-author-elliott-neff/id1185023674?i=1000420893461
Blindfold Chess Podcast-
https://open.spotify.com/show/28ktA1QA3CDeVlsmqyBNjU?si=-xR-VwdQSE2p3ostg_B60g
1:28:00- Thanks so much to Jerry Wells for suggesting this great topic and preparing so much. You can follow him twitter here: https://twitter.com/jerrywaynewells
And thanks to his suggestion of another donation to Books Through Bars: http://booksthroughbars.org/
1:31:00- Blindfold Puzzle Time!
(from Chess steps thinking ahead)- 1. E4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 c5 4. d5 Nc6 5. ?
Answer in link
Mate in 2 from Chess Steps vol. 3)
White: pawn on a5, queen on h1, King on c5
Black: King on a7, White to move and mate in 2
Puzzle here- https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=i/SeZIPEV+zgh1vQyYxcsPBGfWNYaw1qv8rv75i7wdqAgWRjQ5ZJJsHKak3PbZpn
Solution here-
Pillsbury- BVD Dixon, 1900, Blindfold Simul- what move did Pillsbury “overlook” on move 10 for Black
[Event "Pillsbury blindfold sim"]
[Site "New Orleans"]
[Date "1900.03.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Pillsbury, Harry Nelson"]
[Black "Dixon, B."]
[Result "0-1"]
e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Bc5 5. O-O O-O 6. Nxe5 Qe7 7. Nxc6 dxc6
Bd3 Qe5 9. h3 Bxh3 10. gxh3
What move did Pillsbury “overlook” on move 10 for Black?
Game link with conclusion here…
Thanks for listening everyone! If you would like to help support Perpetual Chess, you can do so here: https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/donate