Board visulisation

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RomyGer

Start playing a game with a friend without pieces, without a board.

Just sit, close your eyes or not, and say e4; he says e5; you say knight ef three and he says Nc6; play an opening, known to you and see how far you both will come, when you are far better than your opponent, let him or her take a board with pieces, that is a way to see what suits you...  and a training method.

Does your name I can hear refer to something special, if so, training might be different.

waffllemaster

I definitely don't see 64 squares.  I'm just aware of the interaction between the pieces and squares.  I can bring an area into focus, but like in a sighted game I only focus on limited areas at a time.

If playing blindfold chess is a bit too hard or frustrating I think a good way to practice visualization is to pick a position out of a book and follow the notes without a board.  You may only be comfortable with a few moves at first, and that's fine.  Just visualize as far as you can and then take out an empty board and set up the future position, then check for mistakes.

j-pax

i have this software "chess eye"on my mobile as an app. also you can practise online for free... it also has the knight circuit.. Roi-g  sugessted

http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/

than you can start practise even if you cannot play a whole game.

TortoiseMaximus

Alekhine was asked how he played blindfold and he said he couldn't "see" the individual squares on the board or even the pawns, although "he knew where they were".  A lot of other blindfold masters apparently say the same thing.  Probably it's pretty much completely subconscious. 

ticcherr

i see all 64 square in a dream but no visualiz it when im actualy tryin to play awake

j-pax

i have read a book on blindfold chess and the psychological research on it...

there was a theory that the stronger the player the more abstract the board and piece vision is.... that is, one reason, why they can calculate sooo deep.... it would be impossible to keep the colors, 3 d board and pieces in their mind and go trough variations.

i think this theory makes sense and i think blindfold practise is usefull to get a more and more abstract vision .... the opposite of what you would like.... i hope this helps

qrayons

There was a while where I was reading a lot about blindfold chess. I read that when people play blindfold, no one really sees the squares or the pieces. Instead, your mind has an understanding of the pieces, their positions, and how they relate to each other. Asking someone what the pieces look like when they close their eyes would be like asking them what font they use for adding numbers in their head.

Here’s an interesting exercise I read about. Place a knight, bishop, and rook anywhere on the chess board and then close your eyes. Have a partner move one of the pieces and tell you where he moved it. Then you have to say which pieces can attack each other (or say that no pieces can attack each other). Then he makes another move and again you have to say which pieces can attack each other. And so on and so on.

Example would be knight, bishop, and rook are on e6, c4, and g8 respectively. Your partner calls out that he moved the knight to g5. You would say that the bishop on c4 attacks the rook on g8, and the rook on g8 attacks the knight on g5.

 

The exercise is good because you’re practicing not just remembering where different pieces are, but how they relate to each other. I would love it if there were some sort of app that had this training so I could do it by myself.

BhomasTrown

j-pax

@ crayons i mentioned an app  with a link to this "chess eye"  in the first comment i made

for android... type chess eye in adroid market/google play

edit: chess eye costs $1,89..... i got this one for free and think it's good :)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.subgate.chessvisualizationtrainer

if you scroll down this page you see another "chess memory" app. from the same developer.... i don't know it but maybe worth checking out the free version.

MarvinTheRobot

I never see the whole board when playing blindfold. I can see certain limited areas of it that are important, and while I do "feel" the relevant diagonals and files, to determine which pieces can go to which squares, I never really see them.

qrayons
roi_g11 wrote:

If you are really looking to start playing blindfold I have two recommendations:

(1) you play against your computer.  Minimize the board and enlarge the notation.  Some programs have a 'blindfold piece' setting, but on Fritz it still puts a dot on the square where a piece is...so just minize completely so you can't see the board at all.  I keep an empty board nearby that I look at sometimes.  You can start out playing basic mates -- with KRRvK you only have four pieces on the board to keep track of.  If you can do that easily blindfold, then try full games on handicap setting.  Start out on the easiest handicap setting and adjust up as you get better.  YOu want the comp to punish your basic mistakes (like leaving pieces en prise) but not totally crush you.

(2) memorize short games.  Paul Morphy's opera game is a great example. It is short and very forcing (thanks to bad moves by black).  The act of memorizing it helps with visualization, and then you can play through the game later in your mind.  You can also do this with opening traps from your favorite opening book -- those are usually only 10-15 moves or so deep.

I never thought of starting from simple endgames and playing those blindfolded against the computer. I will have to try that!

fburton
roi_g11 wrote:

(2) memorize short games.  Paul Morphy's opera game is a great example. It is short and very forcing (thanks to bad moves by black).  The act of memorizing it helps with visualization, and then you can play through the game later in your mind.  You can also do this with opening traps from your favorite opening book -- those are usually only 10-15 moves or so deep.

I can vouch for this method. Indeed, the Morphy game is one I have memorized. I also find it helps to quiz yourself at various positions as to what the pieces are doing (e.g. threatening, defending, blocking) and not just where they are. By "helps", I mean make it easier to visualize.

That is as far as I have gone in practising this technique. I guess the next stage would be to analyze simple lines from a given position, though to be honest I struggle with even just the above. For me there's a fine line between chess fun and chess headache. Laughing

VLaurenT

I can play blindfold, but I can't see the whole board.

I just focus on some area and can go from one to another, a bit like with a "mind spotlight". And then I'm more or less aware of the interaction between the pieces.

It's a good exercise for concentration, but at the end of a game, I'm always very surprised when I see the whole position on the board...

anpu3

I remember reading some years ago about one of the early cases of a person playing multiple blindfold games.  I don't mean Koltanowski.  I'm talking back around 500 or 600 years ago.  The people at that time thought he must have been using some supernatural power and intended to burn him at the stake.  So, he skipped town to save his neck.