Chess visualization 2d vs. 3d

I'm curious to know if there has been any studies or even disscusions about how we interact with the board and play the game using either 2 or 3d sets.  For myself, I seem to grasp tactics a lot better when playing OTB, which is unfortunately very rare these days.  And I wonder if this is due to the fact we naturally grasp 3d better than we do symbolics on just 2 dimensions?  Do others feel this way?  Could there be better ways to train for these two types as opposed to doing so the same way?  Perhaps the prevalence of computer screens is costing us a better concept of the game and other important areas?  Just ?'s

When I started playing, I went to a club and learned OTB. I find I play better OTB. But when I sometimes play with people who have learned through the internet, I often notice that they seem to play a bit beneath their regular level the first couple of games. Not a really big difference, but in points, maybe between 50-80 or so.

Well that makes sense.  Any new way of doing something is going to take awhile to get used to.  I'm sure it works the other way around as well.  But I'm wondering if overall and with everything being equal, does the human condition favor either way over the other.  In study and/or practice?

To me both have advantages. Training with the computer is much faster and gives me stats. Training with board, to me at least, makes me concentrate more and I will try more variations. I think maybe even quicker because I can see faster if the move is bad, but practice will be slower due to setting up the pieces and there will be no real stats (Time etc)

It's an interesting question. I am very curious to what other people will respond.

Sorry, I haven't noticed any differences.

Actually I'm not really interested in practical differences during play or study as Wilbert_78's comments I too agree with, but rather if and how there might be differences that may go unnoticed by most in how our general cognition may be altered when analyzing purely symbolic conditions vs. normal human 3 dimensional abstractions.  I think the comparison between these two types of chessboards makes a good example to use in finding out.

Yes, I agree. But, since we are watching at static positions, wich are replacing each other, I'm not very sure if should be any difference. I don't know about studies on the matter.

I started with online chess and had trouble in my first OTB games, because my board overview was bad. Now it changed and I can grab a position better if its in 3D. If I imagine a chess board with pieces in my head it's also always in 3D.

I'm the same way, unless the 3d pieces, whether real or imaged, are complicated or weird.  It seems then that I'm forced to deal with abstractions once again just to distinguish between the various pieces.

I much prefer 2d.  When I play over the board I will often stand up so I can get more of a 2d view of the board.  

Imagining a 3d board is much more mentally intensive as it's implicitly asking "where is the light source", and to answer this question you need to also implicitly answer, "where is True north?" i.e. Is the board facing North, South, East or West? Or if you're imagining a tournament environment then we're trying to visualize our surrounding environment as well implicitly - it's just how mental visualization works - we're always implicitly looking for a visual reference point to orient ourselves toward.  The other key question to answer about 3d visualization is; is the board rotating and are you sitting in the same seat regardless of color? Or are you sitting on opposite sides of the board based on its color? 

All that being said, i've found the power of visualizing a 3d board much more useful in OVB play. So that being said, I think it's more useful to visualize a 3d board but I've had the most success using the following techniques: 

1. Orient the board to a static/fixed position. I sit on opposite sides of the imaginary table based on my color.
2. The light source is directly overhead. Like a Hotel Conference room (often the conditions of a Tournament).
3. I visualize the same style board. I practice with a red colored checkered board, and red & black colored pieces (red = white). So this is what i visualize.
4. If i'm black, i'm sitting on the opposite side of the board in my head. The light source is also directly overhead to mimic a Tournament env.

The benefit of 3d in my mind, is that you're simulating tournament conditions very accurately. 2d play gets much easier, which means reading chess literature gets much quicker. There's much less mental horsepower required to play/read 2d chess. Unfortunately however, it's not indicative of real-world scenarios and so we're often self sabotaging our abilities by only ever playing 2d.  Chess.com has a 3d board in the settings menu btw.

I see tactics much better on a proper board and struggled at first with 2D board. Occasionally, the chess club that I belong to would see a new member who had only ever played online and they invariably struggled and missed things on a proper board for a while.

I think in time there is little difference, although I still far prefer OTB chess, it depends which you get used to first.