The Chess Games of Ray Charles

You almost can't believe your eyes when you see how well this blind musician played chess. You want to say it's a fake game, it was staged, he couldn't really play this well. But then again, when you think about it, giftedness in music is actually quite similar to giftedness in chess, and for a very good reason. It's the tempo. And what struck me in particular in this game is his use of tempo, able to see without seeing where his king would be and that he would lose the opposition if he didn't triangulate his king. His last move in the position shown in the diagram was Kc1. The only possible explanation has to be that he was thinking about tempo and opposition, even if this move doesn't gain it.

It is hard for me to see how to gain the opposition, and I'm not blind. But I've often thought that the opposition was really not something you could see, anyway. It is something you feel. In fact, I finally began to understand the opposition after taking a dance class. It was a co-incidence that I took this class, I didn't take dance to improve chess. But I noticed that being on the wrong foot was much like what happens in chess, and how you can lose the opposition by being on the wrong square, even if you are many rows away from the other king. So Ray Charles, beloved blind musician it turns out, was a brilliant chess player as well. Let's see his game.

Jeremy Silman's "Complete Endgame Course" does as good a job as any of explaining the opposition, but even after pouring over it, it wasn't until I tripped over my feet again and again in my dance class that the connection between being on the wrong foot and the opposition sunk in, suddenly making the whole thing clearer. So Ray Charles has an advantage in that he certainly understands tempo. I found this position to be indicative of this, since he moved his king from d1 to c1 on the last move. Of course if he has gone this far against famous grandmaster Larry Evans, he knows the king needs to move to the center during the endgame, but gaining the opposition often involves triangulation, which means your king sometimes moves in the opposite direction, in order to be on the right square at the right time, so you will have the opposition. The rule as Silman explains it, is your king needs to be able to step onto a square that has the same color on all corners, such that it it now your opponent's move.

Kc1 doesn't work here to gain the opposition, but as well as Ray has played, my guess is that this had to have been was what he was thinking. But in a position where you still have other pieces on the board you can often use them to "waste a move" and regain the opposition.

Ray Charles was famous for being a great chess player and loved to play on the road against his band members. His braille set is still on display at the Museum of Rock and Roll.