'
Chess-playing without looking at the board, now taught by professors,
and supposed to be a comparatively modern art, was, as we have seen
above, known and practised many centuries ago; and among the
instructions last quoted are those for playing the 'blindfold-game.'
The player is 'to picture to himself the board as divided first into
two opposite sides, and then each side into halves, those of the king
and the queen, so that when his naib, or deputy, announces that 'such
a knight has been played to the second of the queen's rook,' or 'the
queen to the king's bishop's third,' he may immediately understand its
effect on the position of the game. This mode of playing, however, is
not recommended to those who do not possess a powerful memory, with
great reflection and perseverance, 'without which no man can play
blindfold.' These, with other instructions, are followed by the
author's remark, 'that some have arrived to such a degree of
perfection as to have played blindfold at four or five boards at a
time, nor to have made a mistake in any of the games, and to have
recited poetry during the match;' and he adds: 'I have seen it written
in a book, that a certain person played in this manner at ten boards
at once, and gained all the games, and even corrected his adversaries
when a mistake was made.
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