Blindfold Chess

Submitted by Phobetor on Mon, 03/16/2009 at 4:52pm.

After reading shootfilm's blog post about blindfold chess and how we can try it too, I decided to play some games 'blindfolded', first against Rybka, and then on the Internet Chess Club. Below is actually quite a nice game I played today, at a 7/0 time control. The final combination with Bxc3! is quite pretty, especially considering I couldn't see the pieces :)

You should try following the game in the video as far as possible without using a board and pieces. The further you can get without getting lost, the better your visualization skills ;)

For those who cannot follow it, or who are too lazy to try :P the game is replayable below the video as well. I've also added some annotations to the replayer.

The game for replay WITH pieces and annotations:

» posted in Phobetor's Blog

| 717 reads | 13 comments

Comments:

by Phobetor - 7 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands

Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1202

sanaz, although I had to concentrate, it wasn't that brain-hurting :) I just keep a picture in my head of what the position looks like at that moment, and that's basically the only extra work ;)

by Phobetor - 7 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands

Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1202

cena_warrior, on ICC like you said you can just choose the Blindfold piece set from Settings - Board Layout (in Dasher). Like you see above (although the quality of the video is not 100% perfect) I didn't see any pieces either, nor any dots for locations. I'm not sure if there are official blindfold rules for this (if you're allowed to see dots for locations of pieces), but anyway you can try to see how far you get without the dots. It's a bit harder (since you don't see where the pieces are), but not that much harder. Just give it a try :)

by farbror - 7 months ago
Uppsala Sweden

Member Since: May 2007
Member Points: 2363

Oh, this is funny! I am actually watching a video of a blindfold chessgame! Very Monty Pyton-esque

by cena_warrior - 7 months ago
Medan Indonesia

Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 729

how to set up blindfold in icc? i mean i managed to blindfold the pieces, but i don't get any dots to show where the pieces are..

by Phobetor - 7 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands

Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1202

Thanks all for the feedback. About the audio: I wasn't really sure if and which music to use as background music and eventually chose for a Bach classic.

And well, I could probably only recognize it's Bach, so I'm impressed you could actually hear which one it is :)

by Cembalo - 7 months ago
Minneapolis, Minnesota United States

Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 1

J. S. Bach, Toccata in d minor BWV 565 for organ. Thank you for the interesting post.

by Eniamar - 7 months ago
Ohio United States

Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 328

Very nice, now if I can actually remember who wrote that, it's going to drive me insane because i SHOULD know. it's not a Bach toccata is it?

by cena_warrior - 7 months ago
Medan Indonesia

Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 729

i feel the video is a little too fast.. i need to keep pausing it to be able to follow it.. btw, is it possible to change the setting to be able to play blindfold chess here on chess.com??

by shootfilm - 7 months ago
Atlanta, Chicago, New York City United States

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 302

Beautiful! The music works too! I am impressed. Now I will have to do one!

by KillaBeez - 7 months ago
Kansas United States

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 4046

Thanks! I always enjoy your blogs. They are very instructive.

by Phobetor - 7 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands

Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1202

Well, I've been playing chess for a long time, so maybe it's a bit too much for me to expect you to be able to follow it. Still, it's a nice training, even if you can't completely follow it. Like I said, I do think that the further you can follow it, the better your visualization skills are...

But well, you can also just watch the game through the game replayer. The combo at the end is worth checking out :)