Modern Status
Today there are Blindfold Chess Tournaments held throughout the year, with the highest profile event being the Melody Amber Tournament, held in Monte Carlo. This event is partly funded by the billionaire Correspondence Chess Champion Joop van Oosterom and attracts many of the world's chess elite to compete in unique circumstances. Of the modern day players, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Alexei Shirov and Alexander Morozevich have proven themselves to be particularly strong at blindfold chess, being alternating winners of the Amber Tournaments between 1996 and 2006.
In 2009 the book, Blindfold Chess, History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records and Important Games, by Eliot Hearst and John Knott was published. It was winner of the Fred Cramer Award for the Best Chess Book of 2009, sponsored by the U.S. Chess Federation, the Chess Journalists of America, and the U.S. Chess Trust. As the name suggests, it is a compelling book that gives excellent insight to the history, progression of and amazing feats performed by participants in blindfold chess.
Read more about this topic: Blindfold Chess
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or status:
“The modern city hardly knows pure darkness or pure silence anymore, nor does it know the effect of a single small light or that of a lonely distant shout.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Knowing how beleaguered working mothers truly are—knowing because I am one of them—I am still amazed at how one need only say “I work” to be forgiven all expectation, to be assigned almost a handicapped status that no decent human being would burden further with demands. “I work” has become the universally accepted excuse, invoked as an all-purpose explanation for bowing out, not participating, letting others down, or otherwise behaving inexcusably.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)