As I mentioned late last year, my father, Eliot Hearst, recently published a book called Blindfold Chess: History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, and Important Games. He spent many years writing the book with help from a co-author, John Knott, and it now stands as the definitive work about the topic. Blindfold chess is the art of playing without sight of the board or pieces—an extraordinary intellectual feat that has a long, colorful history.
I recently designed a full-fledged website for the book; this new site superseded the placeholder site I created last fall. You can now read the entire introduction, which gives a great overview of the psychology and history of blindfold chess, including the record-setting simultaneous exhibition performed by the legendary Miguel Najdorf in 1947. In that astonishing performance, Najdorf played 45 games at once without ever looking at a board.
My father just posted a blog item about Bobby Fischer’s skill at playing blindfolded. As I explained in a post of my own in 2007, Bobby and my father were friends on the professional chess circuit in the ’50s and ’60s. My father’s blog post about Bobby begins like this:
In our book Bobby Fischer is only rarely mentioned and, strangely enough, never in any direct connection with blindfold chess. This omission was mainly due to Bobby’s failure to play any serious, formal blindfold games or exhibitions. However, friends were familiar with his playing without sight of any board and pieces in all kinds of informal settings: taking a walk, riding on a train or plane, having dinner, partying, or relaxing on a day off in a tournament. His master opponents often had no chess set available, either. Virtually none of the scores of those many games were recorded for posterity. But, to no one’s surprise, Bobby was a formidable blindfold player.
For more about my father’s book, visit blindfoldchess.net.
