Chess History And Reminiscences
Resigns.
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BLINDFOLD CHESS
The Arabs are the first we read of among the people of the
East who excelled in playing chess without seeing the board. The
introduction to one of Dr. Lee's manuscripts in his Oriental
collection, relates examples of the early Mohammedan doctors,
and even of companions and followers of the Prophet, who either
themselves played chess or were spectators of the game. Some of
them also are said to have played behind their back, i.e. without
looking at the board, and it may not be generally known that the
manuscript in the British Museum 16,856 copied in 1612, which
is a translation and abridgment of an older work in Arabic,
contains a full chapter with a lengthy description, combined with
maxims and advice for playing chess without seeing the board.
Al Suli, who died A.D. 946, and Ali Shatranji, at Timur's Court,
1377 A.D. (the chess giants of their respective ages), were each
highly proficient in Blindfold Chess. A man named Buzecca, in
1266, on the invitation of Guido du Novelli, the friend and
munificent patron of Dante, and who was Master of Ravenna, gave
an exhibition of his powers at Florence, which occasioned much
surprise and admiration.
The unknown author of the famous and unique manuscript,
bequeathed by Major Price, the eminent Orientalist, to the Asiatic
Society, which has formed the subject of so much discussion among
the learned, parades his own chess prowess, in a manner not
unworthy of some great chess exponents of the present age. "And
many a one," he says in his preface, "has experienced a relief
from sorrow and affliction in consequence of this magic recreation";
and this same fact has been asserted by the celebrated physician
Muhammad Zakaria Razi, in his book entitled: "The Essence of
Things": "And such is likewise the opinion of the physician Ali
Bin Firdaus, as I shall notice more fully towards the end of the
present works, for the composing of which I am in the hope of
receiving my reward from God, who is Most High and Most
Glorious."
The philosopher continues: "I have passed my life since the
age of fifteen years among all the masters of chess living in my
time, and since that period till now, when I have arrived at middle
age, I have travelled through Irak Arab, and Irak Ajam, and
Khurasan, and the regions of Mawara al Nahr (Transoxania), and
I have there met with many a master in this art, and I have played
with all of them, and through the favour of Him who is Adorable
and Most High I come off victorious."
"Likewise in playing without seeing the board I have overcome
most opponents, nor had they the power to cope with me. I the
humble sinner now addressing you, have frequently played with
one opponent over the board and at the same time I have carried
on four different games, with as many adversaries, without seeing
the board, whilst I conversed freely with my friends all along,
and through the Divine favour I conquered them all. Also in the
great chess, I have invented sundry positions as well as several
openings, which no one else ever imagined or contrived."
Notwithstanding the accounts and allusions to Blindfold Chess
here referred to, it would seem to have been generally unknown
to us at the time when Philidor performed his intellectual feat of
playing two games blindfold, and one over the board, on several
occasions at the St. James Street Chess Club, about a century ago.
The club which was held at Parsloes Hotel, was formed in 1770,
and its members comprised many prominent, celebrated, and
distinguished men: Pitt, Earl of Chatham, C. J. Fox, Rockingham,
St. John, Mansfield, Wedderburn, Sir G. Elliott, and other
well-known names are recorded among the visitors and spectators there.
Whilst the players who contended against Philidor at the slightest
shade of odds included Sir Abraham Janssens, the Hon. Henry
Conway, Count Bruhl, Mr. George Atwood (mathematician and
one of Pitt's financial secretaries), Dr. Black, the Rev. Mr.
Boudler, and Mr. Cotter. Stamma, of Aleppo, engaged in London
on works of translation, and who was one of the best chess players,
was matched against Philidor, but won only one out of eight games.
These contests took place at Slaughter's Coffee House, in St.
Martin's Lane, long a principal meeting place for leading chess
players. Philidor does not seem to have tried more than two
games blindfold, but such was the astonishment they caused at the
time, that doubts were expressed whether such an intellectual feat
would ever be repeated; and certainly from the tenor of press
notices of the event, and Philidor's own memoranda, it seems that
it could not have been contemplated or conceived that
performances on the scale we have witnessed in our days by Louis
Paulsen, 1; Paul Morphy, 2; J. H. Blackburne, 3; and Dr. J. H.
Zukertort, 4, would become, comparatively speaking, so common
in a future generation. The following article, from a newspaper
of the period, was thought to reflect with tolerable accuracy the
general impression prevailing at the time in regard to these
performances.
The World, a London newspaper in its issue of the 28th May,
1783, makes the following remarks upon Philidor's performance
of playing two games simultaneously without sight of the board.
It scarcely, however, comes up to our American cousin's views of
Morphy in 1858, just three-quarters of a century later. It says:
"This brief article is the record of more than sport and fashion,
it is a phenomenon in the history of man and so should be hoarded
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