Paul Morphy's first Blindfold record chess games and world Blindfold records

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RichColorado

HI!

Blindfold chess. That is such an interesting concept. The first recorded successful blind game occurred in 970 A.D. by Joseph Tchelebi, but none of his games were preserved.

Three hundred years later in 1266 A.D. in Florence Italy, a Saracen named Buzeccia, played three games against Italy's finest players. Two of the games were blindfolded and the third one in the usual manner. He won the two blindfold games and drew the third.

The first recognized world record and list. In order to be valid there must be a 75% wins of the attempted games.


 

Paul Morphy    8 games  1858  @  New Orleans.

J. Zuchertort      16 games   1876     @ London

H. Pillbury          22 games    1901     @ Moscow

R. Reti               24 games     1919     @ Harlem

G. Breyer           25 games    1921     @ Kaschau

A. Alekhine        26 games     1925    @ New York

A. Alekhine        28 games     1925    @ Paris

R. Reti               29 games     1925  @   Sao Paulo

Geo Koltanowski 30 gms.       1931    @ Antwerp

A. Alekhine        32 games     1933    @ Chicago

Geo Koltanowski 34 games     1937   @ Edinburg

M. Najdorf (claimed) 45 games 1946 @ Sao Paulo

Marc Lang  46 games  11/26 /2011 @ Sao Paulo


 

It took 64 years for some one to break the record held since 1946. Here is one game from the eight games played  by Morphy for the first record. They used the Bishops Opening.


 Remember that Paul Morphy was wearing a  blindfold covering his eyes and seated facing away from the boards. Freeman is looking at the board and so are seven other players.

There is one teller calling out the moves the opponents made. Morphy would call out the move for the board he was responding to. So if each game took 30 moves, then there were 480 total for the eight boards he had to remember . . . 


 

 

 

NMChessToImpress

very cool!