Comments on: Zukertort meets President Taylor

By: GST

GST — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:08:28 +0000

Blindfolded exhibitions are still done, but they’re not as popular these days. Regular simultaneous exhibitions, on the other hand, are still very popular. Grandmasters can make a bit of money by speaking to a club and playing several dozen games at the same time in one evening (with sight of the board). The world record for simultaneous games played was recently broken.

Blindfold chess is not as complicated as many suppose. Any fairly strong player can play a game or two without sight of the board. (I am not a strong player.) It gets hairy when they’ve got to juggle 10 games or so. There are occasionally blindfold tournaments played, but it’s not regarded as serious chess.

There’s an old chess history joke: Archaeologists unearthed an early Christian site in England, and found no chess men or boards. It was regarded as incontrovertible proof that blindfold chess existed in early Britain.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:53:57 +0000

Do great chess players still do the “me blindfolded against six of you at once” routine?

By: La Llorona

La Llorona — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:40:42 +0000

“the chess-playing Pratts were apostates ”

Parents! Keep your kids away from the Chess Menace! It turns them in to pawns of Satan.

By: GST

GST — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:31:38 +0000

I’m transcribing the scan now and I’ll post it this morning.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:29:27 +0000

I hadn’t yet struggled through the fragmented type of the Tribune scan until after I commented, when I discovered you already had those names. Sorry.

By: GST

GST — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:25:36 +0000

Thank you Ardis.

Believe me it’s going to be mentioned in my obituary if I ever beat Magnus Carlsen.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:19:57 +0000

No, not Helaman — Harmel. The three apostate/chess playing Pratts were Arthur, Orson, Jr., and Harmel. See Arthur’s obituary in the Deseret News, 20 March 1919, which mentions his beating Zukertort.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:15:33 +0000

Love it!

Would “H. Pratt” have been Helaman, I wonder?

Parley P. Pratt is credited as bringing the first chess set to Utah, and the DUP museum has a chess set hand-carved by Orson Pratt, so I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that other members of the family had an affinity for the game.

By: GST

GST — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:15:24 +0000

Thanks J. Stapley for help with the Utah Digital Newspapers archive.

By: Eric Russell

Eric Russell — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:13:24 +0000

Sounds like a topic for the next MHA conference.