Blindfold Chess - How to Master it Video

Hello chess blog friends, we found this very nice chess fan video on learning blindfold chess. This video presented in a can't-be-shorter format shows you a very effective way to master blindfold chess.





From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
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How Chess Grandmasters Think During Blindfold Simul: Timur Gareev's Cool Insights

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

 

GM Timur Gareev has written a fascinating article on the USCF website. He writes about a blindfold simul he held recently. GM Gareev is aiming to hold a 64-board blindfold simul in 2013.

GM Gareev writes: Hello from Vegas and Happy New Year! I just finished the most incredible tournament of my life. Jamaal Abdul-Alim conveyed the details of the tournament in the article about the 2012 North American Open. I will be sharing an exciting blindfold exhibition I co-produced in Hawaii the week before Christmas. My vision is to reach a 64-board blindfold exhibition world record by the end of 2013.

 

I was excited to visit the island of Oahu for the 2nd time. I stayed in Waikiki which has an amazing balance of beautiful beaches and active social scene. We met with the Hawaii Chess Federation Scholastic Director Guy Ontai and our instructors Cornelius Rubsamen and Chet Gionson. The students demonstrated genuine interest and commitment. We all played a blitz tourney, competed in a talent show, and of course experienced the amazing 27 board blindfold simul at the Hawaii Washington Middle School.

The simul lasted 9 hours! Initially we got 10 people to start. 10 more people joined after one hour and a half. The last group joined in another hour. That served to create a smoother, faster-pace game flow. My previous experience of blindfold exhibition matches had included 4, 12, and 18 board simuls organized in Austin and Houston, Texas.

As was starting out playing my first simul, I tried to hold on to every position in my mind. I would recreate it over and over in attempt to solidify the image. As I found out later, I don’t need to do that. I can experience the position once. When I “come back” to the board, the position pops up automatically. My quickest session was the 18 board simul in Austin. The event took about 3 hours including many take backs I suggested for instructional purpose.

I felt a little rusty as I started my Hawaiian simul. I certainly felt the lack of consistent preparation which had previously included weekly blindfolded 3-hour matches. Though it is never easy, the mission had to be completed. I took a few moments to enter the meditative space. When my breath started feeling more harmonious I initiated the blindfold journey.

Players announce his or her name and the move in the first couple rounds. Some helpfully announce names throughout the event. Voice acts as an immediate trigger to reawaken the position. Some players may speak softly which can be resolved using a microphone. The player can not announce the move, until I announce the board number. Garyk Ontai was helping me lead the simul. We had a few players who had a hard time shouting out the moves. Garyk was announcing for a girl named Young. The first few times he did that, I was thrown off trying to recollect the player and the position.

Several beginners took advantage of my “fast” decisions and were able to seize big material advantage. None of them managed to convert or hold up in the end. The “2000 club” guys defended their honor with two draws and one win. As part of the fun we assigned a prize of $200 which was divided between the successful participants. 24 warriors were outplayed, outricked, or simply gave away all of their stuff.

Read more to find out why GM Gareev did not allow a young simul contestant to resign!

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com
Don't miss Chess Queen™
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Simultaneous Blindfold: FM Lang plays 35, can he beat Najdorf’s World Record of 45 in 2011?

Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010

Hello Everyone,

We found this fantastic video at the BlindfoldChess website. It is about German FIDE master Marc Lang. He has been working on improving the number of blindfold games in a simul. He started playing 15 simultaneously in June 2009 to becoming the holder of the German record of 23 in November of the same year. Just recently (Nov.27-28, 2010) he successfully took on 35 opponents in Sontheim, Germany, which eclipsed the 34-board performance of George Koltanowski in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1937.

Koltanowski’s accomplishment became the world record for number of simultaneous blindfold games played up to that time, but a decade later Miguel Najdorf played 45 at once in São Paulo, Brazil and this currently stands as the generally accepted world record.

Well, we have the video in German. But don't worry. If you love chess, you would love the video. In any case, flip back to the article and read it in English afterwards at BlindfoldChess website.

Meanwhile, we wish FM Marc Lang the best of luck in his amazing chess quest.



From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

Mikhail Tal Blindfold Chess Video

As a continuation to my recent post about blindfold chess today I found an interesting video where Mikhail Tal is giving a simultaneous exhibition on 10 boards. It's in Russian, but even if you don't understand Russian you can read the article with translation on chessbase.com:

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com

Incredible Blindfold Chess

Hello everyone!

Today I found the following video, it's amazing! It turns out there's a woman, named Jenny Nixon, who can play a blitz simul blindfolded! I've been in chess all my life and I've never heard of her. I looked her up in the FIDE rating list, but could not find her. How could that be? Who is she? Have a look at the video for yourself.

I guess you figured it out, it's an advertising for the brand Eleviv. I'm not too sure what kind of brand that is, but their advertising is quite imaginative, and it's nice they chose chess to illustrate what seems to be some positive influence of a product. Quite funny. Have a look at the other teaser videos on their site.

Now let's go back to being serious and let's discuss how far people have really gone to in blindfold chess.

How many games of chess can you play blinfolded? Strong chess players such as Grandmasters have very good visualization skills, so they are able without difficulty to play at least one game blindfolded, but it is not clear up to how many simultaneous games they can manage. I'd say I would manage 3 or 4 games at the same time, I haven't really tried to play more than 3 games blindfolded simultaneously.

Many strong champions of the past like André Danican Philidor, Wilhelm Steinitz, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Richard Réti, Alexander Alekhine gave very successful blindfolded simuls.

The record of blindfold games played simultaneously was set in 1960 by George Koltanowski in San Francisco, when he played 56 consecutive blindfold games at a rate of 10 seconds a move. The exhibition lasted 9 hours with the result of 50 wins and six losses.

While blindfold chess has been recommended in many sources as a method of increasing one's playing strength, simultaneous blindfold exhibitions were officially banned in 1930 in the USSR as they were deemed to be a health hazard. Mikhail Botvinnik also warned against it. chess players have reported that it is more tiring than regular play, even if faster time controls are used.

Of the recent simuls I remember that in 2004 Vlad Tkachiev played 12 games simultaneously blindfolded, you can read the full article about this simul here.

On December 7-9, 2006 there was a blindfolded match between Veselin Topalov and Judith Polgar played. Which Topalov won with the score of 3,5 to 2,5.

There is even a book on blindfold chess by Eliot Hearst and John Knott which was published in December 2008 and seems to be very interesting.

A very interesting article about blindfold chess can be read here.

While searching the internet on the topic of blindfold chess I even founded an article by Edward Winter with unsolved chess mysteries one of each includes the following paper clip of the Daily Sketch of 1936:

which says: "Miss Angeligi Leoni, of Cyprus, won twenty-seven and drew three of thirty simultaneous games of blindfold chess."

I hope I managed to entertain you with the teaser video at the start of this post and to inform you on blindfolded chess in the latter part of this post.

Now what's your experience with blindfolded chess? Can you do it?

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com