During the first half of the twentieth century, playing simultaneous games of blindfolded chess against multiple opponents became a fetishized skill in the chess world. In 1947, an Argentinian grand master named Miguel Najdorf set a record by playing forty-five simultaneous games in his mind. It took him twenty-three and a half hours, and he finished with a record of thirty-nine wins, four losses, and two draws, and then was unable to fall asleep for three straight days and nights afterward. (According to chess lore, simultaneous blindfolded chess was once banned in Russia due to the mental
...more
