Chess: Playing Blindfold

MEXICO CITY (apro).- A few years ago, former world chess champion Vesselin Topalov played a blindfold match against Judit Polgar, that is, without seeing the board. The Bulgarian won by a narrow margin, but that doesn’t matter. Rather, it is relevant that blindfold chess is rarely played today, although there was a time when this modality was practiced by the grandmasters in the famous Amber Melody tournament, where they competed in rapid and blindfold modes.

Obviously, playing blindfolded simply means that the person who moves the pieces in this way dictates the moves on a normal board. The player must imagine where the pieces are and, in addition, find good moves, because the feat of playing without seeing the board is of no use in order to end up losing the game by making bad moves.

Blind chess was already being played as early as 1226, although chess at that time was probably not exactly like the chess we play today. Philidor played two games simultaneously blindfolded in London in 1783, and was described in one publication as “a phenomenon in the history of man.” However, it seems that this ability to play without seeing the board is relatively common among great players. Talented people apparently display this relatively extraordinary ability, and not only in chess. For example, Gauss, the prince of mathematics, could solve complex mathematical problems mentally.

Returning to chess, the record for simultaneous blindfold games has been broken with some frequency over the years. Paul Morphy played eight boards, Harry Nelson Pillsbury twenty-two. Richard Reti twenty-nine. Alekhine reached thirty-two, and by 1943, Najdorf played 45 in San Paulo, Brazil. In 1960, a Hungarian named Janos Flesch played 52 boards at the same time in a twelve-hour session, winning 33, losing 3, and drawing the rest. In 1970, he managed to raise the record to 62 simultaneous blindfold games. The obvious question is how can such a feat be accomplished? How can one player keep track of the position of so many pieces in so many different games?

The subject is certainly fascinating and playing blindfolded can be very useful for chess players to be able to see moves ahead and ultimately not need to move the pieces to better “see” the positions that arise. I am convinced that learning to play blindfolded should give a competitive advantage over players who cannot imagine the board and the pieces in their heads with sufficient precision. My theory is very simple: “if I could ‘move’ the pieces on the chess board in my mind, I would clearly have an advantage over the player who does not have this visualization ability.”

It should be noted that Judit Polgar could play blindfold since she was a child. There are some photos of Judit playing blindfold, even quick games. This, of course, is a consequence of constant practice at the board and ultimately resembles what a musician can do when reading a score, which is to imagine the music and its sound, without needing to have an instrument to play the notes.

The funny thing about this is that I saw a video on YouTube of a character who doesn’t play chess blindfolded, but who solves the Rubik’s cube in a very short time, but without seeing it. The video (of many that exist) can be seen here: https://youtu.be/Hwv7sK8U6i4?si=xKdoY9aMdCpKPGOH).

It is known that the Russians discouraged blindfold chess exhibitions because they assumed that it could put the players’ mental health at risk. Of course, it is amazing as a spectacle, but if we think more formally, the practice of blindfold chess could even read chess books without the need of having a real board at hand. In fact, Najdorf said that he read chess books like novels.

In any case, this kind of display, whether in chess or solving the Rubik’s cube in this way, is always spectacular in terms of the capacity of the human brain and even players like Topalov, who can play a game blindfolded without any major problems, declared at a press conference in Mexico City on February 11, 2006, that he did not believe that Najdorf could have played 45 boards blindfolded. A curious comment, because the feat of the Argentine/Polish player is perfectly documented.