Blindfold Chess Podcast
S3 E8 Maurice Ashley v M. Berman (1991)
Nowadays, we may see this gentleman as a commentator on large scale events such as the US Championship and the World Championship, but he has had a groundbreaking career including participating in the US Chess Championship and becoming the first Black chess Grandmaster. We are of course talking about -the Tiger Woods of Chess - Maurice Ashley. He joined the Black Bear School of Chess - a chess group of African American chess enthusiasts popular in the 1970s and 80s. This group produced ...
S3 E7 Tatev Abrahamyan v N. Christiansen (2006)
This week, we are looking at a 5-time US Women’s Olympiad participant, a 2-time Women’s World Chess Championship participant, a 21-time US Women’s Championship participant, and a lover of all things penguins - Women’s Grandmaster Tatev Abrahamyan. Born in Armenia, Tatev learned to play chess at the age of 8 when her father took her to the Chess Olympiad of 1996 which took place in her home country. While there, she met Grandmaster Judit Polgar - who at the age of 18 was competing in the...
S3 E6 Eric Hansen v. A. Kim (2019)
Hello everyone, this week we are looking at the youngest Alberta champion, at one point the highest rated bullet player on Chess.com, the highest rated active Canadian player, and a founder of the Youtube and Twitch channel the “Chessbrahs” - Eric Hansen. A couple of years after he started playing chess, in 2003, he participated in the Alberta Provincial Under 12 Championship where he scored 1st with a score of 5 out of 6 and established his provisional Canadian rating at 1316. Quic...
S3 E5 C. Incutto v. Boris Spassky (1960)
This week, we are looking at the long career of the 10th World Champion, the youngest person to become Grandmaster in history (at the time), the youngest Candidate to the World Championship (at the time), and the famed opponent of the 1972 World Championship against Bobby Fischer - Boris Spassky. Spassky learned to play chess at the age of 5 on a train evacuating Leningrad during the Siege of Leningrad during WWII. At the age of 10, he earned widespread attention by defeating the So...
S3 E4 Maia Chiburdanidze v. O. Andreieva (1973)
This week, we are looking (at the time) the youngest Women’s World Champion, a 13-time Olympiad Gold Medal Winner, the second Woman in history to be awarded the Grandmaster title, and a Women’s World Champion for 13 years - Maia Chiburdanidze. She was born in Kutaisi of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic of the USSR in 1961 where she learned to play chess at the age of 8. She played (and won) the 1974 at the Brasov women’s international tournament, when she was 13 years ol...
S3 E2 Judit Polgar v. S. Mamedyarov (2002)
In Season 1, we looked at one of the Polgar sisters - Susan. Today, we are looking at the youngest sister - Judit Polgar. Prepare yourself for a large list of records and milestones. Judit was born in 1976 in Hungary as the youngest of her two other siblings - Susan and Sofia. They grew up as part of an educational experiment carried out by their dad - Laszlo Polgar - with the hypothesis of - “Geniuses are made, not born”. The philosophy was to have the children focus on a specialized skill -...
S3 E1 Howard Staunton v. D. Harrwitz (1846)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the third season of the Blindfold Chess Podcast. This week, we will be looking at a name synonymous with the chess community - Howard Staunton. If you have been around the game for any length of time, you may have heard of him as an unofficial World Champion in the mid-1800s, or you’ve heard of his opening - the Staunton Gambit of 1. d4 f5 2. e4, or you’ve heard of the House of Staunton chess sets/ company that has been recognized as the recommended chess...
S2 E28 Cassidy Noble (show host) v J. Fuller (2019)
Hi there, its me Cassidy, I’ve been the writer and voice of this podcast for a couple of years now. I have enjoyed doing the podcast, but life is starting to creep up so this will be my last episode before taking a hiatus. I appreciate each and every one of you who download and listen to me. The listenership has been so far beyond what I could imagine for. I was hoping to hold off on making an episode until I hit Master level myself, but that isn’t happening any time soon - in fac...
S2 E27 Deep Blue
This week, I wanted to look at a relatively new branch of chess - chess computers. The first ‘chess machine’ built in 1770 was called the Mechanical Turk. The supposed machine would play challengers with various indications that it was a functional machine. In reality, a human operated the machine using ‘The Turk’ as a sophisticated marionette. You have to jump almost 150 years in the future for the first verified chess computer. El Ajedrecista (ah-he-dre-sis-ta) in 1912 was capab...
S2 E26 Francois Philidor v. Cotter (1789)
This week, we are looking at the opera writer and musician who documented chess books and endgames so well we are still using them today. Francois-Andre Danican (Dan-ee-con) Philidor came from a well known musical family. His grandfather was given nickname of Philidor by King Louis XIII of France because his oboe playing reminded him of the Italian oboist Filidor. When he was 6, Philidor joined the royal choir of King Louis XV of France in 1732. The story goes that Louis XV wanted...
S2 E25 Yasser Seirawan v. B. Spassky (1990)
This week, we are looking at one of the most influential names in chess - Yasser Sierawan. Yasser was born in Damascus, Syria to his Syrian father and English mother. At the age of 7, his family immigrated to Seattle, Washington. He didn’t start playing chess until the age of 12 - this was in 1972, right in the thick of the Fischer Boom that was happening in the United States. The next year, at the age of 13, he became the Washington Junior Champion. In 1975, he participated in his firs...
S2 E24 Dommaraju Gukesh v. M. Vachier-Lagrave (2023)
This week, we are looking at the Indian prodigy - Dommaraju Gukesh commonly known as Gukesh D. Born in 2006, Gukesh D learned how to play chess at the age of 7. Two years after he started to play chess, he won the Under 9 Asian School Championships in 2015 with a 1770 rating. He did not stop there, with his rating rapidly climbing - his father gave up his career as an ear, nose, throat surgeon to support his son while his mum continued to be a microbiologist. In March of 201...
S2 E23 Anna Cramling v. T. Simon Lindgaard (2019)
With a birthday less than a week ago, this week, we are looking at Spanish-Swedish star Anna Cramling. Anna has a very strong chess background - her father is Grandmaster Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez - the 5 time Spanish Chess Champion and 11 time Spanish Olympiad player. Her mother is - Pia Cramling - the 5th woman to ever to have earned her Grandmaster title, the number 1 woman player in the world in 1984, and she has 9 gold medals between the European Club Cup and Women’s Chess Olympiad....
S2 E22 Jeremy Silman v J. MacFarland (1991)
Passing away in late 2023, International Master Jeremy Silman made a lasting impact on our game through his playing, his consulting, his writing, and his coaching. Born in 1954, Silman didn’t start playing chess until he was 12 where he went to his first tournament, ending with a rating of 1068. In high school, Silman expressed to his guidance counselor that he wanted to go to “Moscow University” to study chess from the best players of the Soviet Union. Considering this was in the...
S2 E21 Fabiano Caruana vs B. Gelfand (2010)
Fabiano Luigi Caruana, the chess phenom who was the youngest American to earn his Grandmaster title, the youngest to win the Italian Champion, the current top US player, and the number 2 player in the world… - his accomplishments go on for a while, but currently - he is playing in his 5th Candidates tournament aiming for the World Championship. Born in Florida in 1992 to his Italian parents, he moved to Brooklyn when he was 4. He played in an after school chess program when he was 5 whe...
S2 E20 Puzzles
Welcome back to another episode! In today’s episode, I will be providing you with the locations of the different pieces on the board. It is your job to figure out the solution by pausing the podcast before moving on. Today, we will be looking at 3 puzzles each around a different endgame theme starting from Easy and working our way to Hard. Here is your first puzzle - White has a king on e5 and a pawn on c5. Black has a King on d8 with white to move. Again, that is Whit...
S2 E19 Tigran Petrosian v. L. Pachman (1961)
The Iron Tigran was Tigran Petrosian’s nickname for his solid defensive style. Born in 1929, he started learning chess when he was 8. During WWII - Petrosian was orphaned and needed to sweep streets to earn a living. During this time, he got sick and developed a hearing problem that would affect him for the remainder of his life. Using his ration money, Petrosian bought Chess Praxis by Nimzowitsch and by age 12, he began training at the Tiflis Palace of Pioneers - a place where s...
S2 E18 Sam Shankland v. V. Romanenko (2010)
I have been a fan of Sam Shankland for several years. I love that he plays the Caro Kann, his books are good, but mostly - I appreciate his blunt and brutal honesty when talking to people. Born in 1991, Sam started playing chess at 6, but only really started playing in tournaments at the age of 11. When he was 17, he started making a splash nationally and internationally by winning the Pacific Coast Open, the California State Championship, and tying for first at the World Youth Under ...
S2 E17 Nona Gaprindashvili v E. Guseva (1963)
Born in 1941, Nona Gaprindashvili was the youngest of 6 kids and the only girl. She began playing chess at 5 from watching her brother play. Her first major break came when her brother had to back out of a local Team Championship. Nona stepped in to fill his place and performed very well scoring 5th overall. There is a really nice interview she gave to Chessbase in 2018 walking through her chess life and accomplishments, I have left those in the show notes. Vakhtang Karselad...
S2 E16 L. Aronian v Viswanathan Anand (2013)
This episode was a struggle to cram all of Viswanathan Anand’s accomplishments into a highlight script! The Indian Grandmaster has been one of the most dominant and successful players in the game for over almost 4 decades. He was born on December 11, 1969, and moved to Chennai, India, and began playing chess at the age of six from his mother who was a chess aficionado. Anand’s rise in the chess world was very quick. He won the sub-junior championship with a perfect 9/9 score in 1983 at the ag...
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