He blindfolded players and had them play the game from memory, though only top players were able to do this.  
In 1894 he studied chess players in order to see what traits would be necessary of a Grandmaster.  He blindfolded players and had them play the game from memory, though only top players were able to do this.  Early in his career he worked under Jean-Martin Charcot and became director of the one of the Sorbonne's laboratories.  In his most famous work subjects were assessed according to whether they could do such things as follow a lit match, repeat 3 digits, and reproduce drawings.  FTP, name this French psychologist thus credited with developing the first intelligence test, and whose name became linked with Stanford in a set of standardized intelligence tests.
In 1894 he studied chess players in order to see what traits would be necessary of a Grandmaster.  
Alfred Binet