Spectacle of the Mind

As already briefly announced on our pages, on Sunday, 24 June 2012 a highly interesting chess event will take place in the Kaiserbahnhof Potsdam, displayed as Blindfold Chess of the Generations. Here Vlastimil Hort, Marc Lang (the current blindfold simul world record holder) and the promising German junior Rasmus Svane will compete against six chess talents of the DSB in a leapfrog blindfold simul. Moreover, in the general programme there will be a team rapid tournament where different professional guilds will play against each other. The event will conclude with a relaxing barbecue in the evening.

A few tickets for this (non-public!) event will be drawn by the Exzelsior Verlag, see also the announcement in the just published SCHACH 6/2012 issue.

You will find more detailed informations about the complete event on the nice new website Schauspiel des Geistes where also a live broadcast of the games is planned for the 24th of June.

Another item will be the presentation of the new book about blindfold chess which will be published by Exzelsior publishing house by 24 June 2012 – the editor is Raj Tischbierek. Contributions of several authors are included on nearly 200 pages: After a foreword by Vlastimil Hort and a background report by Raj Tischbierek on the Sontheim blindfold world record in November 2011 (with all games) Marc Lang follows with an autobiography and the personal history of his records (blindfold simul European record 2010, world record 2011; 64 pages). A fascinating read are the insights he gives in his own thought-processes during his blindfold play – certainly most readers will conclude that Marc Lang must have some "convolutions of the brain" more than the average Homo sapiens!
The second half of the book – about 100 pages – was created by our treasurer Michael Negele who gives a review of the complete history of blindfold chess. My (R.B.) final proofreading of the book manuscript should be mentioned only for the sake of completeness. We assume that the book will be a useful and successful complement to the work Blindfold Chess by Eliot Hearst and John Knott (McFarland, 2009) and particularly for the readership in the German-speaking parts will offer a reliable reference on the subject blindfold chess.
Here the presentation of the book on www.schauspiel-des-geistes.de/das-buch.../.

Our member Raj Tischbierek will offer 30 copies of the book at a preferential price.
Advance orders can be made by remitting 21.- EUR to our KWA account, postage and packing in Germany included. International shipping involves additional costs of 2.- EUR.

From our South Tyrol friend Luca D'Ambrosio we received two newspaper articles about Vlastimil Hort's blindfold simul in Meran 1981 as well as two photographs which we like to reproduce on this occasion:

A second report from the same local paper:

Hort siegt in Meran
Drei Südtiroler schlagen jedoch den Großmeister

Mit 13:7 Punkten siegte Großmeister Vlastimil Hort über seine 20 Gegner. Die Blind-Simultanvorstellung im eigens hergerichteten Kongresssaal dauerte von 9 Uhr durchgehend bis kurz vor 20 Uhr. Sekundant Horst Watzke aus Graz vollführte für den Großmeister, der in einer schalldichten Kabine saß, die Schachzüge an den 20 Brettern. 20 der besten Südtiroler aus sieben Vereinen forderten den Weltrekordler im Simultanschach über weite Strecken. Nach fünfeinhalb Stunden gab Hort gegen Georg Werther auf. Viel später siegten auch noch Franco Silvestri und Alois Hofer. Hort wiederum gewann (in der Reihenfolge) gegen Paolo Cologna, Konrad Pichler, Heinz Schrott, Konrad Dezini, Andreas Peintner, Walter Hermeter, Fritz Prosser, Walter Stuflesser und Heinrich Strobl. Remis endeten die Partien gegen Elmar Thaler, Meinhard Bertignoll, Patrick Moling, Franz Kohler, Horst Kerschbaumer, Otto Moscon, Giuseppe Voltolini und Gabriele Di Lazzaro.

Dolomiten, 6. Juli 1981, S. 15

Ralf Binnewirtz, 27/05/2012