“Morphy at the age of thirteen played a strong Chess game without sight of the board.Rising step by step to two games,to three,to four and so on, we find him while still in his teens playing twelve games simultaneously blindfolded and against players to whom the champions of the day could not give more than a pawn and move safety in set match. More surprising even than the number of games which Morphy could thus play blindfolded at one sitting, was the nature of his play under these seemingly difficult conditions. The brilliancy of the combinations was in most cases matched by their soundness and often by their depth-in the sense of the number of moves over which,with lightning rapidity, he carried his analysis. A veteran player told me of these games which he had carefully examined after it was finished because he believed that a certain brilliant stroke could be more successfully met than it had been in actual plays. ‘Along every line’,  he said,  but one , I found Morphy’s strategy sound , but along the line there seemed to me a safe, though difficult defense, resulting in eventual victory over him. I passed an hour or two every evening for week, analysing the game along this line, and having satisfied myself it was sound, I mentioned the point to Morphy when next I met him. I was setting up the board to show him what I meant, but he would not suffer me. “I remember the game perfectly, ” he said. “Your defense is not sound, though it was best available; you have overlooked a mate in three, following the sacrifice of my King’s Bishop after the fifth move of your defense”. My veteran friend looked over the position the same evening and found the case was as Morphy stated.   “Imagine the abnormal brain development in some special though unknown way, which enabled a boy Chess player, ten days after playing a game which was one of the twelve played blindfolded, to correct in an instant and without setting up the position, the result of ten or twelve hours of analysis of the game by a strong veteran player!”

Richard A. Proctor in the Louisville Courier Journal.

{ Novel.. The Chess Players }

The New Chess Server is up…

lots of new things to see… such as drag and drop…
the server is still in test mode

give it a test drive here
New Chess Server

CONGRATS… GM GATA KAMSKY

2010 US CHESS CHAMPION

Tuesday May 25 2010 10:00  CDT

Congratulations to Gata Kamsky and Yury Shulman, tied for 1st place.

Sunday, 23 May 2010 @1400 CDT

Saturday, 22 May 2010 @ 1400 CDT

Thursday, 20 May 2010 @1400 CDT

Wednesday, 19 May 2010 @1400 CDT