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 he has not analyzed at all.

References