I agree with you Charles, and this is why tactile chess board sets are built
for this reason.
To the blind chess player who does not need a chessboard especially the
master player as he can play by his head, that is extra talent, not all of
us have the same that they have to respect.
Nene
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Rivard" <wee1sman@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <usbca_chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 9:22 PM
Subject: [usbca_chess] Re: chess visualization vs touching the board
I must have a physical chess set that I can examine with my hands. I don't visualize the board. I explore it. As a blind player, I find this to be a must. If I am not sure of a diagonal, I examine it. Examining the board with your hands does not take a huge amount of time, and it is a better way to make sure that you know where the pieces are, and to check out the repercussions of moving a shield away from a now attacked piece.
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Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lucas Radaelli" <lucasradaelli@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "US BCA" <usbca_chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 1:28 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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