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According to Wikipedia, Timur Gareyev played 48 opponents with a mask before his eyes and sitting on an exercise bike, resulting in 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses. On the other hand, the record for blindfold xiangqi is only 26 opponents. It seems that it is extremely difficult to improve this record even by one game.
I am wondering what makes the difference in the number of opponents? I do not think it is because xiangqi is more complicated than chess.
It could be as simple as the relative popularity of playing blindfolded. In chess playing blindfolded goes very far back. There are reports of islamic scholars playing blindfolded chess of three games simultaneously more than a thousand years ago. In modern times blindfold exhibitions have been a staple of chess events. As records tend to be improved in small steps, maybe xiangqi just didn't have enough events of this type yet, to get to a similar number of games.
