Timur Gareyev breaks blindfold record

12/5/2016 – On December 3, at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas Timur Gareyev made an attempt to break the world record in blindfold simultaneous play. Without seeing the board Gareyev played against 48 opponents at the same time, more than any player before him. With a mask before his eyes and on an exercise bike. 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses later Gareyev could say: "Yes, world record."

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ChessAdmin_01 12/9/2016 12:50

Congrats!

And the comment above on the rating of the 48 simul players is kind of ridiculous; most GMs don't play against that number in a simul even with sight of the board, and certainly not with many > 2000 Elo.

Philip Feeley 12/8/2016 05:15

Yes, congratulations, but next time try a few more higher rated players. Most here were unrated or <2000.

yesenadam 12/7/2016 02:54

Oh - and congratulations Timur! :-D

yesenadam 12/7/2016 02:51

I don't believe that at all, John Stockton. You wrote there what I believe are a load of incorrect assumptions and excuses for not striving to do amazing things yourself. Do anything every day for 10-20 years and people will talk about you like you are talking about them - genius, natural talent etc. I think a lot of it is whether you enjoy/love doing whatever it is, then it's actually easier to put in the hours every day than not.

Read some books about memory techniques; they make seemingly impossible feats quite easy. Like memorizing hundreds of names of people in a crowd. One would think that only people with idiot-savant-level talent, specially-wired brains could do that. But read a good book on memory techniques (e.g. by Harry Lorayne or Dominic O'Brien) and you too will be able to do that, without much difficulty. Becoming a GM is the hard part. :-) But I don't think you need a special brain for that, just years of hard work. I think the commonly-heard talk like yours is pernicious, and just serves to 'save' people from doing anything in life.

John Stockton 12/6/2016 03:32

Also, this is why these type of people (chess greats and people with great memeories) often commit suicide (o go nutty, or can't hold close relationships with others, etc.) -- because their brains are so cluttered with useless trivia. A healthy brain knows how to forget, and that "forgetting" is part of being healthy. I dont want to die, or live life like that--with a brain filled with a zillon chess positions I can't get rid of!

John Stockton 12/6/2016 03:21

These sort of feats just really prover a point: that the brains of great chess players, and people who do great chess feats are wired differently, and there is simply no way you can ever acheive these things unoless you brain is wired differetly. There are more nural connectors to certain parts of their brains than has the average Joe Smoe. That's why there are 3 areas of child prodigys--chess, music and math--all because their brains deveoped in a sort of unusual way. You can never really do this on your own--it comes from birth or very early childhod, or it does not. Carlsen saiss in a "60 Minutes" Intervirw"he just "knows" what to do because he can place zillions of chess positions in his head. Like these people who can remember the weather on a certain day 30 years ago. I know I do not have that, and so I know I never will achieve great chess results (I simply can't), and so don't waste too much of my time on chess--I just don't "have it" to be a great in chess

neilparker62 12/5/2016 05:33

With a little googling, I found the following article answering my query above:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/03/inside-the-brain-of-the-man-who-would-be-blindfold-king-of-chess-timur-gareyev

neilparker62 12/5/2016 01:59

I can't even imagine holding one blindfold game in my head , let alone 48! Can the neuroscientists tell us what it is that these guys have that the average Joe Soap doesn't ?! Congratulations Timur anyway - that's a phenomenal performance!