Hello all,
Here are some notes off the Internet.
Learning Blindfold (BF) Chess without a chessboard
This is how I proceeded:
Use your old games that you have saved.
• Play a certain number of moves depending on your comfort level (5, 10,
15, ...)
Note: After playing the number of moves, get a chessboard and recreate the
chessboard layout in your head on the empty chessboard. Then, get another
chessboard with all the chess pieces from the beginning. Go through the
appropriate number of moves. The two different chessboards should be the same.
• Stop and try to visualize
• the position of each pieces as clearly as possible and more importantly
interactions between them (who is threatening who / what)
• the pawn structure as clearly as possible
• the various threats and possible plans
• Try to continue the game as much as possible but stop when you start to
make "obvious" tactical mistakes or do not "see" the chessboard anymore
• Repeat the process above until you play your first blindfold game!
Try to follow the entire game in your head. Move on to the next. Etc.
In general, following analysis in your head without moving pieces on a
board is good for visualization.
Some additional tips:
• For the first few games, start with the white pieces (should be a bit
easier)...but, after some time, do not forget to play the black ones too!
• Play an opening you are familiar with.
• Ideally, this opening is rather solid and not too complex from a
tactical perspective (forget those wild crazy poisoned pawn Sicilian lines!)
• Pace yourself!...as this can be a very tiring experience but...
Benefits are immense
• Improve your calculation and visual representation abilities
• Increase your capacity of concentration
• Boost your self-confidence during over the board play.
• This fun and rewarding! Playing (and winning) a blindfold game against a
family casual player will establish your Chess reputation in the family
for years to come! :-)
In reading what other people report about BF chess it is clear there is a
wide range of abilities and styles so it's not easy to generalize. Some
people seem naturally to have a strong "mind's eye" and really only need a
little extra work to be able to carry a game in their heads. Other's, like
myself have very little innate capacity. The foundation of this skill is
being able to see the board in your mind's eye. To play BF one needs to
visualize clearly a 4x4 "mini" board. Figuring out how close you are being
able to doing this might give you some idea of the work that lies ahead.
In the beginning I struggled to visualize a 2x2. My mental sight of a 4x4
is still not as sharp as it needs to be. Secondly, there are two main
methods to visualizing the board. Some people just "see" the board clearly as
if
it were in front of them. (Note even when looking at an actual board, one
does not see the whole thing clearly at once.) Others describe their
facility as "knowing one's way around the board" in a
manner that is similar to the way one knows the map of one's own
neighborhood. Many people who cannot visualize a clear map of their own
neighbor
hood can still calculate routes with speed and accuracy. These are not
mutually exclusive - I use a combination of both.
In either case, one needs intimate knowledge of the board, its highways
and byways, its nooks and crannies. This is a major side benefit of BF chess
- knowing the board. Personally, I attacked this problem by brute force.
I set out to memorize every square, and it's interconnections. That is,
for every square , I memorized all the associated knight move squares and
all the associated bishop move squares. I used mnemonic memorization
techniques to do this. (There is more to say about memorization techniques
but
this post is long enough and I am not sure it's relevant to everyone)
About half way through this work, I found I had developed a clear enough
mental image of the board to be able find my way around by visual reference.
That is I can "look" at the board and see where the knight can go. I do not
know whether my method was the most efficient way to develop this skill. I
do believe many people can get there with a lot less work. Of course,
knowing the board is not enough, one must practice with
the pieces. Here, in no particular order, is a list of exercises and
techniques that I have collected. I do not claim to have done all of these
myself or to have done them well :) Practice mentally moving a single piece
around on the board. Bishops are challenging - knights are the hardest.
Play out a K+R vs K mate. Try other basic endgames involving only a few
pieces Choose an endgame study with just a few pieces. Solve it thoroughly
OTB. Then try to review the study mentally, playing through all the
variations.
Get a list of games with mate in 6 moves or fewer. Try to follow these
making sure you know where the pieces are. Concentrate just on seeing the
mate. As you get more comfortable increase the game length and start
asking questions - e.g. why cant he just take that piece? Go through an
annotated game using a real set (or chess program) but follow the variations
mentally and make a serious effort to visualize the final position.
Similarly when solving tactics problems try to mentally visualize the final
position or important intermediate positions.
You can't see the whole board at once - even physically. Mentally divide
the board into its four quarters and try to see each quarter clearly. A
fifth quarter board - the section with corners at c3 and f6 is also
important. Try to make scanning these five quarters :) automatic. If you
have a
partner, play a game in which the position on the board is, say 2 moves
behind the actual game. As you get more comfortable, increase the gap
between the board and the game Again, with a partner, play with just the
pawns
on the board and carry the pieces mentally. Similarly have just the
pieces on the board. One can also play asymmetrically, one side has the
pawns,
the other the pieces.
Play over and memorize some short games using an actual set - eg the
Opera Game by Morphy. Replay these mentally. When you can do this, start
examining variations. It is really cool to be able sit through a boring
meeting while analyzing variations of a Morphy game :)
Edward
