Well, my fellow blindfoldistas, what a delightful week this has been.
Having finally bundled the first few episodes of The Invisible Chess Podcast over the “ready to be released” line, I sat back, happy and even relieved. Only for a moment, though, because suddenly I started thinking … is anybody actually going to listen to this?
I’ve always thought the kind of podcast I wanted to make would work and that there’d be an audience. A niche audience rather than chess mainstream, sure. And yet I felt confident that if it was material that I wanted to listen to there must be other people who wanted this sort of thing too.
Until I hit the PUBLISH button, on audioboom, that is. At that point, all at once nothing seemed so certain.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. I’m extremely happy, not to mention surprised, to have reached well over 300 downloads for Invisible Chess in the first seven days since launching.
Download stats are like elo ratings, it’s true. Putting too much of our attention on them is going to make us unhappy. Still, passing milestones leaves a warm feeling, it can’t be denied.
As a thank you for your ongoing support for Invisible Chess, here’s another game our friend Irving Chernev would have us believe was played by Napoleon. Frankly, I’m even more sceptical than the first one, but anyway it still makes for a good visualisation exercise.
The great general distracts the enemy by threatening him on one flank - and then overwhelming him on the other!
Napoleon - Bertrand
St. Helena 1820
1 e4 e5
2 Nf3 Nc6
3 d4 Nxd4
4 Nxd4 exd4
5 Bc4 Bc5
6 c3 Qe7
7 0-0 Qe5
8 f4 dxc3+
9 Kh1 cxb2
10 Bxf7+ Kd8
11 fxe5 bxa1=Q
12 Bxg8 Be7
13 Qb3 a5
14 Rf8+ Bxf8
15 Bg5+ Be7
16 Bxe7+ Kxe7
17 Qf7+ Kd8
… and White gives checkmate.
Until next time, Happy chessing everybody.
Jonathan / GetBentLarsen
Ooops:
Apologies - forgot to proofread the game before sending it out.
it should read
7 ... Qe5
10 ... Kd8
sorry about that.