Blindfold Chess Podcast

Looking for a second chance at the World Championship after faltering in 2021,  the current World Number 3, Ian Nepomniachtchi, will be taking on a different opponent,  hopefully with a better outcome for him. How did he get to the near pinnacle of the chess world? He started at the age of 4 in Russia. At the age of 5, he moved with his coach FM Valentin Evdokimenko until Ian was 13. When Evdokime...

Outside of his snarky and sarcastic Twitter page, GM Anish Giri is a phenomenal chess player.  Born in Russia in 1994, he began playing at the age of 6. In 2002, his family moved to Japan, then in 2008 they moved to the Netherlands. A chess prodigy - he became a Grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 7 months, and 2 days in 2009, but he did not stop there.  From 2006 to 2010 his rating jumped from 21...

Ten episodes ago, we looked at puzzles. This week, we will be trying a couple more.  These puzzles are not necessarily ordered in terms of difficulty, but each provide key endgame elements that occur in games.  With enough practice, you will be able to visualize the solution without needing to think to solve them,  you can simply look at the board and say 'This is winning', 'This is...

Bonus  I realized I had too much content for Morphy to cram into one episode.  Today, we are going to look at another odds game against his long time sparing partner - Charles Maurian.  Morphy and Maurian played well over 75 recorded games that we know of. The previous game, we looked at Morphy starting down just a rook.  But - a rook is just not enough for Morphy. In this game, he is giving Rook...

IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess)  is a chess content creator on Youtube and Twitch. His name, 'GothamChess' comes from where he grew up in New York City. He has earned over 1 million subscribers on Youtube and his videos have received almost 500 million total views since he started in 2018. Starting chess when he was 6, he played his first tournament at the age of 7 with an initial rating of...

Considered to be an Unofficial World Champion of his time,  Paul Morphy was one of America's greatest flash-in-the-pan chess players.  Nicknamed "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess", Morphy learned chess by watching his father.  By age 9, he was one of the best players in New Orleans.  At the age of 12, he beat the Hungarian Master Johann Lowenthal (one of the top players of the 1850&apo...

The current icon of Ben Finegold is one of snark and sarcasm -- ... which he has always had.  He learned about the game when he was 5, getting his first rating at 6.  By the time he was 12, he was offering/ hustling in New York at 8:1 odds in bullet games.   Ben graduated high school at the age of 16 and in 1993 he earned the US Chess Trust Samford Fellowship  - a prize given to chess trainers to...

15. Irina Krush v Damon Macleod (2009) Excuse me for the easy joke - but Irina Krush - does crush.  The 8 time US Women's Champion and (currently) the only woman to earn a Grandmaster Title while playing for the United States, Irina is in a league of her own.  Born in Odessa, USSR (Ukraine today), she learned to play chess and migrated to Brooklyn when she was 5.  She became the youngest fema...

Chess has been around for centuries, varaitions date back to the 6th century from India with a game called chaturanga.  From there, it moved to Persia, then through the Muslim world, into Spain, then taking over Europe.  Throughout its history there have been several iterations -  Elephants morphed into Bishops, Chariots into Rooks, Foot soldiers into Pawns.  the Advisor which could move diagonall...

The 4 time Women's World Chess Champion and the 2nd highest rated female player of all time, Hou Yifan started playing at the age of 5 with the help of her chess mentor IM Tong Yuanming. At 13 became the Chinese Women's Champion. She earned the Grandmaster title at 14yrs 6mo 2 days (one of 39 women in the world to ever do so). At 16 she became the Women's World Champion. She has bee...

"The Silent Assassin", Vasily Smyslov was a Soviet chess legend. Born in 1921, he first learned about chess when he was 6 and remained very active in the elite levels of chess well into his 60's winning the first World Senior Championship in 1991.   During such a long chess career, Smyslov was always at the highest levels of chess. He was excused from WWII service due to his severe...

This week we are looking at IM Eric Rosen, the popular Youtuber and Twitch streamer famous for his "Oh no my Queen" traps.  Growing up, he started playing when he was 7 and won the 3rd grade state championship at the age of 9. When he was in high school he won the 2011 US K-12 Championship with a perfect 7-0. That clear of a victory was so unprecedented that the Skokie Village Board (his...

This week, we are looking at a couple of puzzles! Easy White King on b7 Black King on e3 White Rook on a4 White Rook on h8 Medium White king on a2 Black king on c1 White pawns on f5, g5, h5 Black pawns on f7, g7, h7 Hard Reti's Position White king on h8 White pawn on c6 Black king on a6 Black pawn on h5 GM Wesley So solving Blindfolded studies -  https://youtu.be/oe_UtZudAY0 http://cassidynob...

This week, we are looking at GM Susan Polgar, the oldest of the Polgar sisters.  Outside of her controversial upbringing, she achieved a plethora of achievements -  Perfect score in the U11. Winning the U16 at the age of 12. Highest rated female in the world at age 15.  World Champion in 1996. And now working on the SPICE training camp at Webster University.  In today's game, we are looking a...

This week, we are looking at a game from GM Hikaru Nakamura. The internet's most popular chess streamer.  I could not list all of his accolades due to a character limit, but some of his highlights -  5x - US Champion 2x - Candidate for the World Championship World's Wealthiest Chess Player 1.5 million Twitch followers 1.3 million Youtube subscribers Countless winner of Titled Tuesday (Ch...

This week we are looking at Max Lange - the founder of the West German Chess Federation and the 2nd president of the German Chess Federation. Estimated to be one of the top players of the 1860's, Lange was the a 4 time winner of the West German Championship and has an opening named after him (The Max Lange Attack - 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.O–O Bc5 6.e5). Max Lange vs Heinemann...

This week, we are looking at another short game from Pillsbury - this time a blindfold game of his. This game is quite the example of quickly a blindfold game can unravel if you lose the position.  Not much is known about Zangger as this is the only game in the database for him.  I like this game because it also demonstrates that you can be a legendary player and still screw up games...badly. That...

Alireza Firouzja is a chess prodigy. At age 19, he is the youngest competitor in the 2022 Candidates tournament to play against the World Champion. He was the youngest player to break the 2800 rating barrier, is currently ranked number 3 in the world, was as high as number 2 in the world, and Magnus Carlsen has stated that he only wants to play the World Championship if Alireza is in it.  Iranian-...

Today, we are looking at Rubinstein's Immortal - a beautiful game involving sacrifices that left his opponent spellbound. A top of the world player who was scheduled to take on Lasker for the World Championship in 1914, but was put on hold due to WWI. Later in his life, he developed a fear of humans and schizophrenia.  1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. e3 c5 4. c4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. dxc5 Bxc5 7. a3 a6 8....

Today, we are looking at a game involving Harry Pillsbury. Pillsbury was a very strong American player, a strong blindfold player and the winner of the Hastings Tournament of 1895. Unfortunately, illness then death at the age of 33 prevented him from competing for the World Championship.  1.f4 e6 2.Nf3 b6 3.e3 Be7 4.Be2 Nf6 5.b3 O-O 6.O-O Bb7 7.Bb2 d5 8.c4 c5 9.Nc3 Nc6 10.a3 Qd7 11.Qc2 Rac8 12.Rad...

Today, we are looking at a game between Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov from 1974 in their Candidates Final (game 21). This was won by Korchnoi in 19 moves. Korchnoi is argued to be one of the strongest players in the world that never won the World Championship title.  1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.c4 Be7 6.Nc3 O-O 7.Qc2 c5 8.d5 exd5 9.Ng5 Nc6 10.Nxd5 g6 11.Qd2 Nxd5 12.Bxd5 Rb8 13.Nxh7...

This week, we are looking at the longest reigning women's world number 1 player - Vera Menchik.  Vera Menchik v George Thomas (1932) 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.Nge2 b6 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.d5 Ne7 10.g4 Nd7 11.Rg1 a5 12.O-O-O  Nc5 13.Ng3 Bd7 14.h4 a4 15.h5 Qb8 16.Bh6 Qa7 17.Bxg7 Kxg7 18.Nf5+ Nxf5 19.gxf5 a3 20.f6+ Kh8 21.Qh6 axb2+ 22.Kb1 Rg8 23.hxg6 fxg6 24.Qxh7+ 1-0 https:/...