Update for the Bournemouth Junior Chess Club – Saturday 23 April
Saturday’s theme was blindfold chess and playing chess by V.I. (visual impaired) players
1st part
Eric gave a talk on the history of blindfold chess including details of demonstrations by some of the greats – Philidor/Reshevsky and Alehkine.
Records for most games played by Alehkine in 1934 – 32 with 19 wins,4 losses, & 9 draws.
George Koltanowski in 1937 – 34 games with 24 wins, 10 losses over a period of 13 hours – no chess clocks used in those days!
Marc Lang set a new European record in 2010 playing 35 opponents with 19 wins, 13 draws, & 3 losses over a period of 23 hours! Yes 23 hours!
Lang improved his record a year later in 2011 playing 48 opponents with 25 wins, 19 draws, and just 2 losses.
In 2016 Timur Gareyev played 48 opponents with a mask before his eyes and sitting on an exercise bike resulting in 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses.
Eric went on to play 6 opponents including Zander/Finn/Leo/Harry/Tristan and Max. And make 15 moves before losing – well done boys!
2nd part
All 8 juniors took part in playing blindfold and did really well to maintain concentration and play legal moves – Jin/Shouraya/Jiya/Swara/Marcel/Harry/Woody & Joey.
Steve Bailey gave a detailed and excellent demonstration of V.I. and braille chess.
The juniors were given different levels of glasses all with sight options and made some moves on a braille board.
We hope today’s lesson gave all 14 students the chance to visualise playing blindfold chess and what is involved when loss of sight occurs.
See previous posting “Juniors experience partially sighted chess” for photos.
Eric Sachs