Chess blindness

Deep Fritz vs. Kramnik
Bonn 2006

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

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. An example of 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. The term was coined by Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch.

References

• 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 

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