So, with 35 games, Marc Lang now holds both the German and European records. Only Najdorf’s achievement stands between Lang’s and the world record. He expects to play 46 late next year to establish a new world record and it seems likely that he will reach this goal. Psychologists would consider all the displays mentioned above, as well as others described in our book, to be among the greatest memory feats that humans have accomplished.

Lang’s recent display received exceptional coverage in the German television and general print media, perhaps as much as or more than has been devoted to regular world chess championship reports. Maybe that is because no German GM has been a solid world championship contender for many years! If you know the German language you can read a detailed report of Lang’s 35-board display here, which also includes a listing of all the individual board results, photos and videos of the exhibition, as well as other historical and relevant material. It even shows Lang playing chess at home with his two young children and observing wife, or riding his bike to maintain his general physical health and to keep in shape for his strenuous displays. We reproduce here the U-tube video from German TV, which will give our readers a view of the playing arrangement and computer-controlled setup, as well as many other features of the exhibition. Unfortunately, the audio part of the video is in German, but the visual part is easy for most of us to follow, even without a knowledge of that language.

Rather than sending our readers to German language websites, I think they would like to find out some details and sidelights of Lang’s recent display written in English. He has corresponded extensively with me and much of what follows is derived from his emails. His final score was 19 wins, 13 draws, and 3 losses, a very good winning percentage of 72.9%. The whole event took 23 hours from about 9 AM on Saturday, November 27 to about 8 AM on Sunday, with a total of four breaks (half-hour each). Lang sat in the center of the exhibition room, facing all his opponents whose chess positions were concealed from him by cardboard barriers in front of each game. Lang has used this arrangement before and he could chat and joke with each opponent if he wanted to. Also, seeing the people he faced probably enabled him to build up stronger associations with the moves that had occurred in each game. Lang allowed opponents to be replaced by another person if they got too tired and did not want to stay until the finish.

Lang, a computer professional. sat in front of a laptop and entered the moves called out by his opponent and then typed in his answer. His computer was connected to a video projector, which could be viewed by everyone, that indicated his opponent’s last move briefly and his reply briefly so that his and his opponent’s moves could be checked for accurate transmission and a complete score of the game would be available at the game’s conclusion.

To be even clearer, only a single move appeared on the projector at a time and disappeared after each was input. Thus Lang had the added task of typing moves into a computer, which apparently did not distract him from his major task of playing 35 games simultaneously! Of course he was playing “blindfolded” because he never saw anything more than his opponent’s last move and then his own reply, which is intrinsically the same as all previous blindfold displays where the exhibitor heard his opponent’s last move and then called out his reply. The use of a computer-projector arrangement like this was a novel way of conducting a blindfold display and it probably helped prevent incorrect transmission of moves that have occurred in past displays because of simple errors made in calling out moves.

Another novel and useful feature of this exhibition was that all but two of his opponents had standard numerical ratings based on the German DWZ system. Transformed into USCF ratings, the strength of his opponents ranged from around 1000 to around 2100, with an average rating of around 1600. One of the problems comparing all previous blindfold displays over the past three centuries is that the strength of opponents could never be adequately evaluated. Thus it was almost impossible to decide whether a performance involving 20 opponents might be superior to one of 25 or 30, because the opposition might have been by far the strongest in the 20-board display. That is why the world blindfold record has always been decided in terms of the number of opponents one has faced. Now actual ratings, rather than subjective judgments, can be used as an additional factor in comparing winning percentages in displays involving different numbers (or even the same number) of opponents.

Of course, you will not find masters and strong experts participating as opponents in most record-setting displays (except in exhibitions given in the 1920s and 1930s by Alexander Alekhine, who was to become or actually was the regular world champion at about that time and who is considered by almost all knowledgeable blindfold experts as the best blindfold player ever). As GM Erich Eliskases wrote me with respect to Najdorf’s 1947 display, “no one can play such a lot of (blindfold) games against players of first-class strength”. Except maybe Alekhine.

For example, my impression is that the average and range of strength of Lang’s 35 opponents was greater than Koltanowski’s 34. Readers can play over the games from Koltanowski’s display in our book and determine that many opponents were very weak and lost very quickly. Furthermore, he offered or accepted quite a few draws within the first 15 moves, in order to rapidly decrease the number of games he still had to play and recall. Koltanowski finished 47.1% of his games in fewer than 16 moves, whereas Lang finished only 8.6% of his games in fewer than 16 moves and took no quick draws, as he had vowed to do before the exhibition. Lang’s percentage is remarkably close to Najdorf’s on this measure, since the latter had only 8.9% of his 45 games ending in fewer than 16 moves. However, my impression is that Najdorf’s opposition in 1947 was somewhat stronger than in Lang’s recent display. All of Najdorf’‘s games in this display are included in our book and we welcome opinions from readers about the strength of his opposition compared to, say, Koltanowski’s. Unfortunately, no numerical ratings were being calculated as far back as 1947 and so such judgments have to be subjective. (The German website cited above gives several of Koltanowski’s very short games.) Incidentally, I calculated the average number of moves in Koltanowski’s, Najdorf’s, and Lang’s exhibitions to be, respectively, 18, 26, and 24 moves.

To handle so many games at once, blindfold champions must develop a system beforehand for making memory of and distinctiveness between the various games far easier than playing without a well-practiced system. We discuss many such mnemonic systems, often quite different for each individual exhibitor, in our book on blindfold chess. Lang decided to group the games into 7 sets of 5 games, with the first four games of each set being based on a certain theme or opening pattern, with him having the White pieces, and the fifth game “anchoring” this set by his playing Black. For example, in the first five games he employed what he calls a “motto” (“knight to the left”, Nc3 with White or Nc6 with Black very early in each game). He actually started Games 1 and 4 with 1.Nc3 but played 1.d4 in Game 2 and 1.e4 in Game 3 followed on his next move with 2.Nc3. With Black in Game 5 he answered 1.e4 with 1…Nc6. For the second set of five games his “motto” was “c-pawn” and he played 1.c4 in Games 6 and 9 and c4 on his third move in Game 7; with Black in Game 10 he answered 1.d4 with 1…c5. In Game 8 he decided to play c3 on his third move because c4 was an inappropriate move (some flexibility is usually necessary depending on his opponent’s play).

Interestingly, Lang reported that whenever he had Black he couldn’t turn the positions upside down in his memory. He played them all with a view from the White side!

Lang also included one computer as an opponent, a Fritz 11 program set to play at a USCF rating of approximately 1800. Lang outplayed the computer and should have won, but (as many of us have unfortunately discovered in our own games against computers), the machine took advantage of some weak moves by Lang and eventually scored one of the three victories against him (the other two were due to terrible blunders by Lang; forgetting the exact position, he placed his queen where it could be taken for nothing in both games). The game against the computer is given below, along with two wins by Lang in this exhibition.

Unlike many previous blindfold champions, Lang was not haunted by persisting images of the games for days or months afterward. Furthermore, he was able to fall asleep soon after the display and did not suffer the insomnia that so many other blindfold champions have reported.

All the above evidence indicates that Lang will be successful in his attempt to play 46 games in 2011, but we will have to wait about a year to find out.

M. Lang – H-P. Muck
Blindfold Simul, Sontheim, Germany, November 27-28, 2010
Board 28 (of 35)
Irregular King’s Pawn Opening B00

Muck was Lang’s strongest opponent, with an approximate USCF rating of 2100. Here he apparently tried to confuse Lang by playing an eccentric opening, but it backfired completely. The diagram shows the final position, in which Muck resigned.

1.e4 g5 2.d4 h6 3.h4 g4 4.Qxg4 d5 5.Qf4 dxe4 6.Nc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 Nf6 8.Nxe4 Nd5 9.Qg3 Kf8 10.Nf3 c6 11.Bd2 Bf5 12.Nc3 Nb4 13.0–0–0 Bxc2 14.Qf4 Nd3+ 15.Bxd3 Bxd3 16.Ne5 Bxe5 17.Qxe5 f6 18.Qh5 Kg7 19.Rh3 Bg6 20.Rg3 Qe8 21.Re1. 1-0

M. Lang - F. Jarchov
Blindfold Simul, Sontheim, Germany, November 27-28, 2010
Board 18 (of 35)
Caro-Kann Defense B12

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Bb4+ 6.c3 Ba5 7.0–0 Ne7 8.Nh4 Bg6 9.Nd2 Nf5 10.Nxg6 hxg6 11.Nf3 Nd7 12.Bg5 f6 13.exf6 gxf6 14.Bf4 g5 15.Bg3 Nf8 16.Bd3 Nxg3 17.fxg3 g4 18.Nh4 f5 19.Qe2 Rxh4 20.gxh4 Kd7 21.g3 Qf6 22.Qxg4 Qh6 23.Qe2 Nh7 24.Rae1 Qf6 25.b4 Bc7 26.Qh5 Rh8 (Diagram) 27.Bxf5 exf5 28.Rxf5 Qd8 29.Rf7+ 1–0

Fritz 11 Computer – M. Lang [D78]
Blindfold Simul, Sontheim, Germany, November 27-28, 2010
Board 35 (of 35)
Grünfeld Defense (Irregular) D78

1.c4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 0–0 5.Nf3 d5 6.0–0 c6 7.Nbd2 Bf5 8.Qb3 Qb6 9.Qe3 Nbd7 10.c5 Qc7 11.b4 Rfe8 12.Bb2 e5 13.Qg5 h6 14.Qe3 exd4 15.Qb3 Rxe2 16.Bxd4 Rae8 17.Qc3 Nh5 18.Bxg7 Nxg7 19.Nd4 R2e7 20.Bf3 Ne5 21.Rfe1 Nxf3+ 22.N2xf3 Rxe1+ 23.Rxe1 Rxe1+ 24.Qxe1 Kf8 25.Qe3 g5 26.h4 f6 27.Nxf5 Nxf5 28.Qe6 g4 29.Qxf5 gxf3 30.Qxf6+ Qf7 31.Qxh6+ Ke8 32.g4 Qe7 33.Kh2 Qe2 34.Qg6+ Kd8 35.Qg8+ Kd7 36.Qg7+ Kc8 37.Qf8+ Kd7 38.Qf7+ Kc8 39.Kg3 1-0 (Diagram of final position; with all those White passed pawns on the kingside, Black’s position is hopeless, especially against a computer.)

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.