Blindfold CHESS
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Sep 23, 2019
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#7
I have a hard enough time staring at the board right in front of me. Envy those who can do it all in their head!
How I learned to play blindfold CHESS
Playing blindfold chess!
Chess for me, began sixty eight years ago in 1951, when I was 13, on a boring foggy San Francisco summer day. Six friends and I got several chess books at the library and learned to move the pieces.
We used a red and black checker board and cheap plastic hollow pieces that always fell over all the time. They came in a forty game box. Only Bill my best friend took to playing chess regularly.
I played in a playground tournament and won my matches easily because they barely knew how to move the pieces.
In the semi-final games at the 19th avenue park I lost badly, but I had fun.
One day in the 1950's I watched Master George Koltanowski performed a blindfold 30 game presentation at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, California.
I was impressed when he performed the Knights tour. I became a member of his Chess Friends Association and joined his chess club. We became friends.
At that time I was a rookie at chess. I used to play in any tournament that Kolty would run and I would always won my round robin matches. They were groups of four and we played six games against each other three games as black and white.
I got tired of winning and I would receive a book from Kolty as the first prize.
One day I said, "Hey, Kolty you gave me this last tournament. Just let me play the others that won their matches so I know I can beat them also." It never happened.I
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In 1958 as I was working at Westlake Bowl as night mechanic and playing chess with Tim the other mechanic in the service room.
The door opened up and in walked out boss! He looked at us, at the Chess board and said, "Is this how you spend work time? Why aren't you on the other side Tim?"
"We were taking a break!" Hoping he would believe us.
"Go back to your side. If I catch you guys playing chess again, you're both fired!"
We didn't dare play again. We started using just the board and moving the pieces in our minds calling out the moves. We got so good we didn't need the board. We could play anywhere just calling out the moves.
We always had a chess board without any pieces on the workbench. Many times we were playing a game but nobody knew it. When one of us made a mistake we would have a discussion as to where the pieces were and we would keep the game going.
I believed that most every one can play a full game when they reach a "B" level. Tim and I learned out of necessity.
We played every night, sometimes using a Boy-call to make our moves.
The boss came unexpectedly to catch us but each time there wasn't a chess board set up.
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Several years ago I taught and school chess at a elementary school.
“Before you go home today I'll give you some homework to do.”
“Oh. No.” “Homework?” Were some of the comments I heard.
“It is going to be some fun stuff to do. It isn’t like math!.”
I showed them how to recognize the location that each piece is on.
I showed them the fool’s mate. I showed them how to avoid getting mated that way.
“Last thing I want to show you is how you can play chess blindfolded.”
“I can’t do that. I got to see this,” said one boy.
“Let me show you using this board. Look I move the white pawn to 1. e4 and the black pawn to 1. ... e5.
Now I moved four more moves. I pointed to each piece I had moved on my DEMO board and I had the kids name the piece and the square they were on.
"Now I am going to cover the demo board. Ian come here and play black against me, making the same opening moves."
“Ok. But you might have to remind me what the move is.”
Now with just a empty boards between us and all the kids watching I said,
“I’m moving my pawn to e4. Ian can you picture that on the empty board.”
“I see it,” he said with a smile on his face.”
“Ok. It’s your move. Make it.”
Ian said, “Pawn to e5.”
“Ian, can you see both pawns? Where are the pawns?”
“Yours is on e4 and mine is on e5,” He said.
“All you guys can you see the pawns also?”
“Yes, Yeah, sure.” Were the responses.
“I know that you can't see them, but you know they are there. Ok my move. Bishop to c4. Your move Ian.”
“HUH . . . bishop to . . . c5 I think.”
“Perfect now my Knight to f3. Your move Ean, Look at the board.”
“Knight to hus . . c6.”
“Mine: bishop take pawn on f7 check. Your move.”
“hu . . . huh . . Hey You didn't show us that.“
"But can you see it Ean?"
"Yes I can but it was supposed to be the castle move."
“Excellent, great job Ian. See? It can be done with some work. How about all you guys can you see them on the empty board? I know that it will take some practice to do that but you will be able to do some of it soon.”
You should have seen their eyes light up. Most of these were third graders. Ian was in the fifth grade.
I couldn't wait for the next lesson and see if their homework was done.
I learned with descriptive notation later they changed to the Algebraic way so all countries would be able to use. I can't play blindfold anymore because is you don't use it you lose it. Besides i'm losing my game abilities because of age.
But I can still teach