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Timur Gareyev Plays Record 48 Games Blindfolded
GM Timur Gareyev played 48 chess games blindfolded simultaneously from Saturday to Sunday in Las Vegas. The grandmaster from Uzbekistan, who now represents the United States, improved upon previous simuls by FM Marc Lang (46) and GM Miguel Najdorf (45) and hopes that his record will be internationally recognized.
Throughout Saturday, December 3 and a bit of Sunday, December 4, Gareyev played chess simultaneously against 48 participants without sight of the boards. Against 43 on-site opponents and five online opponents, he scored 35 wins, seven draws and six losses.
The simul took place at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and ran from Saturday 8:30 a.m. until Sunday 3:39 a.m. There was a half-hour break because of a fire alarm so, in total, the simul lasted 19 hours and 9 minutes. His parents traveled to be with him for the memorable day.
The day-long event was a culmination of several years of preparation for Garayev. Previously, his largest blindfold exhibitions were 33 boards in St. Louis, 2013 and 35 in Santa Clara, CA earlier this year.
The record isn't officially recognized yet as an official representing the Guinness World Records was not present. However, everything was recorded, and all games were broadcast live, so there is a chance that the record will be recognized by Guinness at some point.
Unlike at some of his previous exhibitions, for this simul, Gareyev seems to have met the most important criteria for becoming historically recognized.
He reached an 80 percent score (38.5/48 is 80.2 percent).
The games all started at the same time.
His opponents were of decent strength (ranging up to 2200, with commentator Jay Stallings claiming the average was around 1700).
Time will tell if all this was enough.
Here's a game against one of the stronger opponents. Gareyev puts up a strong attack against the enemy king and eventually checkmates it on move 39—That was quite far into the simul.
Gareyev, in fact, played half of his games with the black pieces. While visiting the world championship last month, he told
Chess.com that this is helpful, as it creates some variety in the games. He also said that he uses other techniques to remember which board is which, including chatting with opponents the night before to learn their voices, which helps him remember which board is which.
"Sometimes people provide the moves in a certain way," he said.
Garayev also told that he's adapted the technique of a "memory palace" that is used by memory competitors, usually used to remember things like numbers or the order of playing cards. He said each game is like "a room in a palace."
"It's all there," he explained. "I walk into my kitchen I see that stack of bananas." The abstract images are an analogue for specific moves, so presumably he now knows a lot of different fruits!
Thanks! for reading!
