Blindfold Chess

When the chess player becomes nearly blind.

I have not updated my substack for a while because of circumstances slightly beyond my control. Since what happened to me could happen to anyone, let me explain.

One morning, I woke up seeing double. I put it down to sleeping badly and perhaps with the pillow pressing on my eye. That was wishful thinking. When after two days things did not improve, I had to go to my eye surgeon, who last year operated on my left eye.

According to him, I had a “mini-stroke” affecting my left eye. This made my two eyes uncoordinated, hence the double vision. Everything around me looked like it was in my 20s when I drunk too much. You know, when the ceiling moves…

I asked the surgeon how it could get fixed and he said at the time, this condition can fix itself but it can take a week, a month or a year. Charming… Let’s hope for a week.

After three months of me barely being able to do anything normally, like reading, writing, driving, shopping, using my phone and a lot more, he decided to send me for an MRI to confirm his diagnosis. The little bit of chess I was playing at the time was worse than playing blindfold. I would play on my computer, on a very big high-contrast board and I remember one game, I repeatedly tried to play Qe2 to a6 but it wouldn’t let me. That’s because my queen was on d1 and I was trying to move its double. It is good to have two queens when you play chess but not when one is imaginary.

I had one draft chess article already nearly written at the time and with a lot of effort I managed to publish it here. But it did not mean everything was fine…

Three days before the MRI, my double vision started to correct itself. I called the surgeon and told him. He said to go ahead with the MRI, which for me is over 100km away and with double vision you certainly cannot drive. Although I could see much better on the day of the MRI, I could not chance driving half-way to my destination and have a double-vision relapse.

As we were waiting for the MRI results, my vision became better and better and better. The MRI showed that everything was normal.

Well, let me tell you, for three months I was nearly totally disabled, and it did not feel normal. Today, I am fully recovered and believe it or not, as a result of all this traumatic stuff, I now see better than before. In fact, to the surprise of the doctor, I do not even need glasses to read anymore.

So I am back with a vengeance and my chess has been crisp and very annoying for my opponents who do not suspect what I have been through. Get ready to see in the next few weeks some examples of a recovered blind chess guy.