Author: John Merlino
Date: 16:07:35 06/07/03
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On June 07, 2003 at 18:38:14, Omid David Tabibi wrote: >Once I played a simultaneous blindfold against 8 (weak) players. Needless to say >that after finishing the games I slept for 16 hours and had a severe headache >for the rest of week... (I never repeated that insane experience) > > >From http://www.sigschess.com/news_32103.html : > >"Russians, however, were not always so eager to let their chess greats >play blindfold. It's commonly reported that Soviet chess authorities >banned blindfold chess because of possible health dangers. > >"The belief had some precedent. Some early blindfold greats following >Philidor suffered from insanity. > >"American chess legend Paul Morphy, who dazzled 19th century Parisian >crowds with blindfold exhibitions against the strongest French players, >went insane and died at age 47 in New Orleans in 1884. > >"Another American blindfold wizard, Harry Pillsbury, went insane, and >many blamed it on his excessive blindfold play." Interesting. The Chessmaster team, a little over four years ago, played a six-game simul (NOT blind) against the greatest blindfold player of all time, George Koltanowski. He was a mere 95 years old at the time, and he trounced us all of course, as our best player was probably around 1700 USCF. I made it to the endgame two pawns down and felt pretty good about myself. :-) jm
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