English Chess Forum

Hi all,

I've been asked to be the arbiter in a low-key friendly local tournament (only one up from a sub-group of club members) of blindfold chess.

I am sure I could make up some rules about illegal moves, clocks/time controls etc, and the need for me to play the game through on a board to keep track, but where is the fun in that? If someone already has, or knows of, rules that they could share, I'd be grateful...

Cheers,
James

I think using clocks might be problematic.

See: https://www.chessvariants.com/incinf.di ... spiel.html

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote: ↑

Sat May 17, 2025 3:12 pm

I think using clocks might be problematic.

If blindfold just means playing without a board, you can use a clock as normal. That's a set up where the arbiter has a board and pieces out of sight of the players and physical moves are played only on that board.

There are variants where the players can ask for the score of the game to be read out. That's a rule used sometimes in blindfold simuls.

Kriegspiel is where players don't know where their opponent's pieces are. Blindfold is where you are told the moves of your opponent and annonce your own moes but have to remember the position without having a board to remind you. n

It may say here... https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/ext ... fold1.html

I have the Hearst and Knott book and seem to recall that the rules varied somewhat.

Thanks all, I'll take a look.

Yes I think a clock would be an issue - what if the arbiter takes his time to move the piece in a time scramble? None of the players are 2000+ so they are likely to c*ck it up within a couple of moves in a time scramble, but still.

I'd also like to be able to run two games at a time (I suspect any more than that would be a challenge!), which would make the clock even more difficult.