Grischuk wins the 2010 Amber blindfold

Today was the final round in the 2010 Amber tournament, and featured a crucial game between Grischuk and Carlsen which would decide the winner of the blindfold section. It was quite representative of rapid blindfold play between two strong players - the quality of play was excellent, right up until someone forgot (or misremembered) where one of the pieces was. I don't mean to suggest that a mistake of this magnitude has happened in most of the blindfold games at Amber, but it is not uncommon, happening in perhaps one game in ten. After the game Carlsen said that he had thought that perhaps his opponents queen was on d2. I have included this game below, but the Amber game archive includes all blindfold and rapid games for 2010.

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So, I suppose that makes Grischuk the poster child for this blog, having won the highest profile blindfold competition for this year. He even said that he preferred the blindfold games at Amber to the rapid, as you get slightly more time on the clock and he felt he could 'see' the position just as well as in normal chess.

Alexander Grischuk meditates on his next blindfold move...

When Carlsen was asked after the event which of his games he was most happy with he mainly mentioned blindfold games. Talking about the above game vs Grischuk, Carlsen said that after he played 25...Qxe4 he saw his opponent 'looked puzzled', and he realised he had made a mistake. Speaking with journalist Mccauley Peterson he said that he feels less bad about blunders of this kind than other losing moves, and Mccauley referred to him being in good company with others such as Anand, Kramnik, Aronian etc. having made similar mistakes in this format.

The position below is from Gelfand vs Ivanchuk in their blindfold game. White is up material but under pressure, and it is his turn to move.


17.d5! ...Bxd5 18.Nc3 ...Bc6 19.Rad1 ...Qe6 20.e4

Although nothing special by GM standards, this kind of play (where you sacrifice material for development and piece co-ordination) still impresses me a great deal - and makes my own play feel very clumsy by comparison.

I played a semi-blindfold game yesterday and today. In yesterdays game I had got as far as a distinctly unpromising pawn down position with zero compensation when my opponent asked to adjourn. Today however was a win for me, with the semi-blindfold nature of the game really only causing one noticable problem...another mouse slip. I really need to be more careful. I ended up almost blitzing out the moves, and am now rated 1622. I think that's a pretty clear sign that I should just remove the rest of the pieces and start playing with only pawns on the board.