Folks,
thanks for all the responses. I just wanted to make clear that I am not
saying that I want to stop touching the board, but, having the ability
to understand relations with only my mind, this would be a huge improvement.
The reazon for posting this was to check whether you had some sort of
exercise or thing that I could practice to improve on that area.
Happy to see that this list has a lot of members and only in one week a
lot of great discussions appeared.
On 15/11/2015 05:53, Mark R Hague wrote:
Hi Lucas,
I would say that probably over 97% of all blind players check their
understanding of the chess position by exploring the board by touch. It is
true that if you practice without a board that will help your visulaisation
skills. However unless you are a chess genius like Chris Ross you will make
mistakes, as you point out its easy to miss tactics along the diagonals. For
the most of us, the mere mortals, we just need to practice playing chess as
much as possible and try and remember as much as we can especially where are
opponents pieces are placed less we forget that a Bishop is parked somewhere
waiting to snaffle an incorrrectly placed piece. I have to admit that if I'm
playing a blind person who isn't using a board I will try and catch them out
on the diagonals or over complicate the position so they miss something and
make a mistake. I think its true if you understand the relationship between
chess pieces and who is controling key squares that will help you with your
visulisation skills. As you've only returned to playing chess for a couple
of weeks I would recommend that you try and stick to fundamental chess
principles and I'm positive after you've been playing for a year or so
you'll make great improvements as you develop an instinct of what a good
move is even if you can't calculate the position to the nth degree.
Have patience and learn from your mistakes its more important to analyse the
games you loose than the ones you win.
Best wishes,
Mark.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lucas Radaelli" <lucasradaelli@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "US BCA" <usbca_chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 7:28 PM
Subject: [usbca_chess] chess visualization vs touching the board
I started playing chess again two weeks ago and haven't won any game
yet. computer, people and even a friend of mine that played only in his
childhood were able to defeat me. analyzing my games afterwards, it is
kinda clear the points of mistake -- I would move a piece leaving other
unprotected, thus losing a important piece in early game. Basically
losing a lot of material without gaining anything back. This was not
because my opponent used an amazing tactics, it is simply because I
could not visualize at the moment of my move that I would be doing such
a stupid thing.
I feel that touching the board takes too long. I am able, at a given
moment, to describe the position of all the pieces in the board from
memory, but I can not create relations between them in my memory. It is
a list of positions, but it lacks the feature to tell me what is being
attacked, what is being protected and so on. I fell that for verticals
is much easier to visualize in my mind, but when it comes to diagonals
for me it is very hard.
I am not saying that I don't touch the board. I do, but even then I fell
that it is easier to just think on the board, the pieces and try to
understand how they relate to each other to actually touch the board. It
takes a lot of time, as I said.
So, I am writing this e-mail to understand if other blind players
experienced that in the beginning as well, when they started playing. Is
there any advice or some sort of exercise that you would suggest me to
do to improve on that area? I felt that my sighted friends, with a
glance, can understand the board very quickly and plan their moves. With
a lot of pieces, I just could spend a lot of time trying to understand
the possible threats and not planning actually what to do.
Not sure if this was clear enough, but would love to hear your
experiences. It's been a bit frustrating this start. I have been
enjoying solving puzzles much more than the actual play, hope to change
that soon.
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