Chess blindness

Deep Fritz vs. Kramnik
Bonn 2006

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Kramnik, as Black, blunders with 34. ... Qe3??—a classic example of chess blindness. Deep Fritz responds with 35. Qh7#.^[1]

Amaurosis scacchistica (Latin for chess blindness) is the failure of a chess player, during a chess game, to make a normally obvious good move or see a normally obvious danger. The term was coined by Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch. Similar to chess blindness is the Kotov syndrome, in which a player, after a long period of calculation, suddenly makes a move they have not analyzed at all.

References

1. ^ Deep Fritz vs. Kramnik

• Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1992), The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 210, ISBN 0-19-280049-3 
• Gelenczei, Emil (2004), The Little Book of Chess Blindness, Caissa Hungary, p. 120