I rely on chunking. I basically think about the structures present in the position, and I find when playing blindfolded that as long as the game stay on main lines (normal opening development, standard middlegame play), I can remember the pawn structures and piece patterns much easier.
http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/chunking.htmI can visualize it pretty well as long as it's common chunks. If someone were to play a bongcloud against me blindfolded, I would struggle a lot more in keeping track of the position.
I usually visualize an image when analyze a position of interest or OTB game in my head (on the bike home during a stroll or somewhere)
Due to focus I tend to not visualize the whole board but the part where the action is happening which maybe 2/5 to 3/5 of the board. When coming to a conclusion and verifying my opinion, I will then search the remaining parts of the board for pieces that have influence on the focus area.
The focus is dependent, A g2 bishop will always be in the "initial" picture for tactics on c6. A rook on f1 usually not but but could in a second search if it activates with a threat in certain lines.
when playing blindfolded, I see a blurry board or a part of the board in more focus. I don't see colors which makes it hard to calculate bishop moves.
I don't really have an exact method in which I calculate and visualise lines in my head, but I have learnt a few very useful tips that help me while visulising:
1.Say the moves very clearly in your head (this helps the position become much less blurry and directs your focus on the position)
2.Calculate a bit slower ( this helps you digest the information of the position in your head better)
3.Calculate only what you have to (When you find yourself calculating a very long line , ask yourself: " Do I have a simpler alternative that would be easier to calculate?").
As for training this skill , I use 3 main ways:
1.Solve positions with few , but long branches of variations.
2.Follow through games without moving the pieces.
3.Read books without using a board.
@hitsujyun said in #5:
> Hi, I'm Takashi. I made a website " How to Visualize a Chessboard and Movement ". However, the English translation has not yet been completed. For me, English translations are time-consuming and I don't have the energy to translate all the articles on that website into English at the moment. I hope you find this information helpful.
>
> How to Visualize a Chessboard and Movement
> visualization-chess.blogspot.com/
I checked the website out! Its amazing, will definitely try to work on my blindfolded game.
@F-Konstantin-N said in #15:
> I checked the website out! Its amazing, will definitely try to work on my blindfolded game.
Thanks! I am happy to hear that.
Hi chess players,
Jakok thanks for the post!
A bit about me, I have been playing chess since 5 and now I am 24. My activity was much higher till 17 years old and my pick raiting back then was 2230. Now, I am around 2100. I am a very intuitive player and I mainly trust my feeling while my chess knowledge accorging to my raiting I think lacks. I have just played a lot during the years. I consider myself more than decent in tactics.
I recently started wondering how do I actually calculate and more specifically how I visualise chess positions. The stimulus was that I attempted to do a blind simultane with 2 chess boards. So, for me I think that the way I visualise chess is closer to V, but I definitely use both V,M. To be more precise, when I approach an exercise(let's say a puzzle), I quickly scan the position with M method, when I see some combinations, maneuvres, long diagonals, basic motifs etc and then the hole position is somehow "clear" in my head. On the other hand, when I play blindfolded, I beging with a chess board in my head and I start moving the pieces accordingly. However, in all the different occasions, many times the position starts to get blury and in order to fix that I stick to memory methods( patterns I discovered in the beggining for example).
Before I read this article, I had a completely different way to explain how I visualise chess board. Imagine that you have a dark image and you hold a lighter in you hand. You can't see the whole image with the light produced by the lighter so you have to move around the image in order to comprehend it in the depth you wish. After, some time exploring the image('position'), the lighter produces stronger light, so you can see bigger part of the image. That's it!
Lets put it simple...
can we develop V or M aproach? (what are the principles of this view, are there others?)
and either we should look out and inside of chess.
we are all humans, so then there we analyze.
Outside of chess.
How these patters revolve into the strategies we use daily...
key word: Imagination.
I would say I'm pretty decent at visualising. I can follow a game blindfolded and set up the position from memory after at least 15 moves with almost complete accuracy, maybe a pawn will be misplaced ever so often.
I definitely don't "see" the pieces visually (mind's eye), but somehow I just know where they are.
Common patterns make it easier to remember parts of the position, for instance, if white has castled kingside, then until the structure on the kingside changes that part of the board doesn't take up much mental space. Same if there's a castled king with a fianchetto structure.
Blindfold chess is also much easier with a board to hand, I think this is because I literally just have the positions of every piece in working memory ( in the same way that you could describe the locations of all the items sitting on your desk if you walked out of the room ). And, if the pieces are in a common configuration then there will be some extra information like that they are in a pin relationship.
If I'm playing blindfold without a board it takes a lot of extra effort to visualise the board, whereas blindfold with a board visible is much simpler because there is a visual guide to the board geometry.
When visualising a few moves after a given position (when calculating) it's just remembering where the pieces have moved to and where they have come from.
TL;DR
So, to conclude, my approach is definitely an "M" approach generally.
However, as with all mental tasks, the more you practice the more it becomes a "V" approach.
I don't think there's really a distinction between the two and that V is just M that has become automatic through repetition.
Imo you either got it or not
Might be possible to learn from an early age
