A few Questions on Blindfold Chess Visualization

I have recently come across the idea of blindfold chess. Please keep in mind that my questions are more geared toward chess visualization rather than the actual playing of chess blindfolded.  I would be very grateful if you guys can help answer a few of my questions:

Does practicing/learning blindfold chess skills help your (normal) chess-playing ability at all?

What helpful method do you use to help you visualize the board and the position?

In my few attempts at visualization, I find that I can't even "see" the board; instead I see the "ghosts" of pieces [I can sense them but not see them] suspended in midair. Is this normal?

I have heard of the idea of memorizing the color of squares. I don't see how it's useful. (After about five minutes of trying to figure out which square is which color, I found out that if you give a number to each letter, 1 for a, 2 for b, and so on, then add the two numbers together, you can figure out the color. Even numbers are black squares and odd numbers are white squares, but I digress.) How does knowing the color of the square help visualization, if at all?

That's it for now. I may ask follow-up questions if necessary. Thanks again for your input!

I'd go back and edit the original post and give each question a number to make it easier to specify each answer.

1. Yes, it does help your normal chess.

2. Most of my visualization comes from patterns and angles rather than actually seeing a board with pieces on it. But I'm sure higher rated players could tell you more about how it's REALLY done....

3. I guess. I have something similar . Most of the time when I play against someone in blindfold (I don't have much competition around here) the game is over within 15 moves because they either blunder a checkmate or keep making illegal moves i.e. moving a bishop across a blocked path.

4. I suppose this would give a pattern to what you're trying to see and give it a more spatially recognizable conception. But I've personally never heard this before. It's an interesting idea....

That's pretty much all I've got. Most of it probably isn't helpful

We've talked about this subject here before but I can't find the thread at the moment.

I can tell you that for me--and I think this is typical--about one quarter of the squares of the board (i.e. 4x4) appear fairly concretely, and this spotlight of concentration moves around as we move our interest around. The pieces are usually "ghostly" or just plain abstract. We them as fields of force. For me, when the action is concentrated in a very local area I may see the pieces more.

In my case I never perceived any aid to my regular OTB chess from blindfold play, and at times I dinked around a bit fanatically with blindfold.

 Thanks. I think I will consider putting a bit of my valuable time each and every day into bettering my visualization skills. I don’t intend on playing blindfold games; I only want to be able to “read” chess games without having to bust out a chessboard.

I found blindfold play gave me headaches and that the weakest players give me much more trouble than stronger players do. I never tried several games simul in blindfold. If playing 1 blindfold game gave me headaches I didnt wanna try more than one....

@estragon: That's what I figured. I suppose that the benefits of blindfold play are in the skills that you force yourself to learn as you improve your visualization. How do you manage to see the pieces and board though? I can't physically "see" anything when I try to visualize.

I agree with all of that. It's terrible to play against a blitz-style player in blindfold that doesn't play by logical theory. It makes it harder to keep track of his pieces sprayed around everywhere.... But at the same time, those same people play blindfold chess and have far worse positional awareness which makes them far more prone to blunder.... Here's a game I remember playing recently (blindfold)

But i'm betting Reb has better competition than I do. I have no rating, he has a title. Yeah, that's a safe bet