It was the year 970 when the first chess legend was born in the Mediterranean in the figure of Greek Joseph Techelebi.

This humble sailor became famous not only because he could beat anyone from Byzantium to Finisterre, but also because he could do it without looking at the chess board. It was the beginning of one of the most thrilling variations of the game–blind chess.

Ever since those times, many geniuses of chess have surprised the public by showing their astonishing memory skills in blind chess. Until the beginning of the 20th century, grand masters practiced this variation without worrying about the consequences. In fact, in 1920 Hungarian‑born Gyula Breyer broke all records and was able to play 25 blind chess games simultaneously, an incredible record that remains to this day.

But after the prodigious Breyer, blind chess began to falter in popularity. The mental strain from the practice was discovered to be very serious, and players could take several months to recover, if they recovered at all. That is why nowadays, blind chess is not played as often. Apart from some prestigious blind chess tournaments like the one held in Monaco every year, blind chess is used only in exhibition format.

The most recent of these exhibitions took place in the Spanish city of Bilbao. From Dec. 7‑9, two top‑notch grand masters, Veselin Topalov and Judith Polgar, played six blind games. Polgar has been very successful as of late against ex‑world champion Topalov, but the results came in to her rival's favor this time as Topalov won commandingly 3.5 to 2.5 points.

Today we present the first game of the tournament. Judith played very boldly from the beginning, perhaps even blindly intrepid at some points. She took grand risks, but Topalov's concentration was simply too strong.