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Question about Blindfold Chess
Can the book be read without using a board and pieces?
Can the book be read without using a board and pieces?
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Re: Question about Blindfold Chess
The games are in a separate section in the back, so yes the book can be read without board and pieces.Originally posted by Dan Scoones View PostComment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
On the weekend at a tournament (KW Winter Open) between duties I had a chance to observe the position of one of my students games in the under 1700 section. He was Black and both he and his opponent were tied for the lead of the tournament. As it happens I managed to see what turned out to be the turning point position in the game. The opponent had just sacrificed a knight on g6 and I left before I could see what would happen. I worked things out in my mind and after the game I asked my student what happened. He informed me that I lost. I told him that after the knight sacrifice on g6 I thought he was better. He asked why. I said after Nxg6 black plays Nxd5.
He went away and thought about it and shortly after came back and said: "your variation loses - at the end I am down two pawns". I must add that my better students have learned to argue with me and discuss variations. Part of being a good student is realising I am not the "great teacher" anymore, that I am fallible (especially in calculations), and just another player, and it is all part of building confidence on their part.
The position is White: Kg1, Qb1, Rf1, Ra1, Bb2, Bd5, Ng6, Pawns h2, g3, f4, e3, d2, c4, b3, a2 Black: Kg8, Qc8, Rf8, Ra8, Bg7, Bg4, Nb4, Pawns h7, f7, e7, d6, c5, b7, a6 The position occurs just after the knight sacrifice on g6. It is Black to move. So in reply to 1.Nxg6 Nxd5 when I asked my student what white move now - he replied 2.Nxf8. I then said what if 2...Bxb2. This was too much for him to discuss in his head (as he had seen this move but rejected it but couldnt remember why and couldnt calculate it in his head) so he found a chess set and we looked at the position. After 2... Bxb2 he thought that 3. Qxh7+ was winning but after 3...Kxf8 4.Qh6+ Bg7 Black is up 3 minors for a rook and 2 pawns. So after 2...Bxb2 3.Qxb2 Nf6 (better may be Nb4) the white knight is trapped. After 4.Nxh7 Kxh7 the position is interesting with the slight material advantage for White of rook and two pawns for N+B. However the white squares are chronically weak. Anyways this variation was far better than what happened in the game. In the game the knight sacrifice was successful and White quickly won. The position above turned out to not only be the turning point of the game but the turning point of my students tournament. This loss was of course psychological and knocked him out of the lead and he relaxed and finished out of prizes. The discussion we had above is an example of the most common form of blindfold chess which most tournament players have indulged in at various times during tournaments.Comment
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Re: Question about Blindfold Chess
Board and pieces? Isn't that against the point of blindfold chess?Originally posted by Dan Scoones View Post
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
Last weekend I was on a 2 hour trip by Greyhound and I decided to do a "project" that had been on my mind for a while. I took out my favorite teaching book and played over games in my mind just reading the score. However what was different was I tried to picture the board and all the pieces and then each move completely visualising the piece moved and then the surrounding board. What I "pictured" was pieces from a normal plastic Staunton tournament set and a green and white squared tournament board. The hardest part was the beginning - picturing the entire starting position of the pieces but the problem was not picturing all the pieces but surprisingly picturing the empty four ranks in between. However after a while (20 minutes) I could do it. I already had a game chosen out of the book and I started playing out the moves in my mind: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 The pieces moved easily until here but with Black's next move exd4 I had surprising difficulty - I could make the move easily and remove the white pawn to the side of the board but then the position of all the pieces started to fade! No matter what I did I couldnt get the entire position back. Finally I tried one more thing. I read the game score from the book and committed it entirely to memory. Then I started again. I pictured the entire starting position of the pieces (this time it came much more easily) and then I started again with the moves of the game. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.e5 Nh7 7.00 dxc3 8.Nxc3 Be7 9.Qd3 00 10.Qg6 d5 11.Nxd5 fxg6 12.Nxe7++ Kh8 13.Nxg6# Admittedly not much of a game (who would ever play like Black??) but I was surprised how easy it was to make all the moves. So how about a game with substance? I chose Tartakower Prins 1936 (just opened the book at random and Tartakowers name popped up and I knew there would be some depth to this game) I didnt make the same mistake as last time, first I memorized the game score and then I started picturing the setup position of pieces again - it went quite fast this time. The game went: 1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.g3 h5 6.d4 h4 7.gxh4 Ne4 8.Qd3 Bf5 (So how does White start expoiting the white squares? Surely not the primitive Qb5+?) 9.Bh3! Bg6 10.Rg1 Qe7 (My mind was tantalized by ...Rxh4!?) 11.Rxg6!! (anyways) 11...fxg6 12.Nc3 Nxc3 13.bxc3! (patience - I, the patzer, wanted to play Qxg6+ in my mind) 13...00 14.Qxg6 Re8 (primitive mate threat) 15.Qd3! Nd7 16.Ng5 Nf6 17.Be6+ Kh8 (my mind loved ...Kf8 18.Qh7!! which was where it went first) 18.Nf7+ Kg8 19.Bb3!! Kf8 (look at what the white Q+B are doing on the diagonals!) 20.Nf8! 1-0 Anyways moving the pieces got easier as it went and I was amazed I could also do short lines of analysis (where my mind wanted to go) The bus ride of 2 hours seemed about 20 minutes long. I checked everything in the light of day on a real board when I got home and that was a strange feeling - the positions seemed more "powerful" in my mind. Anyways I am very happy with my powers of imagination at my age - I honestly didnt think I could do it anymore (not so clearly) Next time I am going to try two boards at once.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
The last move in the last game of the last thread above should be 20.Nh8. Apologies and thanks for the tip Steve.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
Well I have tried twice to visualise two boards at once. I have been successful visualising two boards from the starting position, one with the white side in front and one with the black side in front. I have been successful going through the game above with all the moves from start to finish but with my black side game I have only been able to do 5 moves before the position fades. I am going to keep trying as I have been able to do more than two games in the past (admittedly more than 20 years) and I think I will eventually have a breakthrough. Anyways it has been really good for my tournament chess but it does take alot of energy.Originally posted by Hans Jung View PostComment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
This last week I had fun teaching and playing blindfold chess. I teach chess at a thinking skills school in downtown Kitchener (that's right - thinking skills only - the brightest kids -max four per school - every public school in the region - get to attend one semester one day a week thinking skills only classes and they love it) and as a treat as it was the last class of the semester I played a team game against the class. One of my former private students was in this class - Grade Seven - and I had him do the moves on the teaching chess board as his ability to communicate in the chess language was far better than any of the other students. The 12 other students chose to play White. I sat facing them and away from the board and they chose 1.e4 I asked them what opening they would like me to answer with and they said "Sicilian" so 1...c5 2.d3 I was surprised to see this and I explained the moves of the Open Sicilian to them and why. One of the kids answered that his school teacher had taught him that this was the Closed Sicilian. As I didnt want to get bogged down in theoretics with them I figured I would give them a lesson in the center so immediately 2...d5! I think the class was a bit intimidated with me which explains their next few moves (although all the moves were voted on with majority making the choice) So to refresh here is the game: Class (seven girls, six boys) White - Jung (teacher blindfold) Black 1.e4 c5 2.d3 d5 3.f3 e5 4.Nc3 d4 5.Nd5 Be6 6.Bg5 I asked why this move? Cant I just take the bishop? As they were reluctant to answer I said - oh, you want the rook in the corner. Fine. Now the easiest (and perhaps most logical) move for me was 6...f6 making the pawn structure and then after 7.B retreats 7...Bxd5 8.exd5 Qxd5 I win a center pawn and dominate. However this would not be as "immediate" or important a lesson as taking the B with my Q. So I played: 6...Qxg5 7.Nc7+ Kd7 8.Nxa8 Na6 9.Nh3 Qd8 Before making this move I demonstrated that I didnt have any better options with the queen,9... Qh4+ just helped white develop,9... Qe3+ is just a check and after 10.Be2 the queen is just attacking on her own. In truth I ignored the best move 9...Bxh3 because that would have led to a slaughter. The game continued 10.c4 Qxa8 11.Qa4+ Kd6 12.000 Be7 I explained here about order of development (why bishop first) which may have prompted their next move!? They did understand that the opening was close to complete and they were searching for a middlegame plan and the most active move (and most popular) was 13.f4 exf4 (again Bxh3 was better) 14.Nxf4 Bg5 (pins they also understood well but didnt "see" this one in advance) 15.g3 Bxf4+ 16.gxf4 Ne7 17.f5 Bd7 18.Qa3 Nb4 19.Rg1 g6 20.Bh3 Nec6 21.fxg6? They wanted to make this move even though they were losing the Bh3 so to keep the lesson focused I simply recaptured 21...hxg6 22.Bxd7 Kxd7 23.Rg2 Ne5 24.Qa4+ Kd6 25.Rg3 Rxh2 26.a3 Nbc6 27.Kb1 Qh8 28.Qb5 Qh4 29.Rdg1 Qf4 30.Qb3 Qf2 31.a4 Na5 32.Qb5 Qc2+ 33.Ka2 Nxd3 34.Rb1 Nb4+ 35.Ka1 Qxb1+ (Here I pointed out that the move 35....Qb3 (to them amazing because of 36.Rxb3 Nxb3#) was actually a big mistake because of 36.e5+! (the tickler) and White will turn the tables in all variations) The game ended 36.Kxb1 Rh1+ 37.Rg1 Rxg1# The game with all discussion of moves, voting, and demonstration of variations took about an hour and a quarter. The class thoroughly enjoyed it and when asked half way thru if they would rather stop the game and play normal games of chess they unanimously voted to continue. Of course many more questions on moves then I presented here happened and I think I explained the answers to all the questions so that everybody understood. I was amazed at how far their minds reached in their thinking considering how little their knowledge in chess was in general. A streaming video of this game in progress would have been interesting.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
In the thread Blindfold Chess - the book the question was asked what do you see - the colour of square? In recent reading (by me) in the book: "Studying Chess Made Easy" by Andy Soltis he refers in two sections called "Bolstering your Board Feeling" and "Exercising your Mind's Eye" to visualising different square colours and also exercises by Russian educators that practice piece connections. He also infers that you are not born into visualisation but must practice it. Also interesting reading on this topic can be found at: The Skittles Room at www.chesscafe.com in the archives under: Blindfold Chess (an article by P. Anderson Graham which is based on an interview of Blackburne and his approach to blindfold chess)Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
I tried a couple blindfold games. We had no board, and so we just named moves. In the process, I found I could only concentrate on a handful of pieces at once. I also could only visualize a small range of the board at once. Directly I had a fuzzy image of a handful of squares and a fuzzy notion of pieces on that handful.
If I thought of a black bishop moved to a6, I would tend to realize a7, b6, c6 were occupied, and a5 and b5 were vacant. I wouldn't know if it was attacking or attackde, so I'd trace up the a file, and then consider b5,c4,d3,e2 (Pawn!) and stop. Often I'd have to recite recent moves to remember where stuff went.
Obviously it takes quite a while to play a game by this process.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
A bed time book (an author) suggests that kids must learn all board - notation and colors - by heart.
Max what I learnt - d1 is white, d8 is black. Enough to set up a board correctly :DComment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
A good way to get better at the visualisation process is to start with the gamescore of an exciting miniature game (excitement helps the minds visualising powers). Put a tournament chess set and board in front of you in the starting position.
Now start with move one by looking away and visualising 1.d4 - that is actually seeing the pawn move from d2 to d4.
Next try seeing Blacks 1...Nf6. - that is the knight moving from g8 over the pawn g7 to f6 (you would also see the pawn f7)
Next 2.c4 - that is pawn from c2 to c4 .
Next 2....e6 the pawn e7 to e6.
Next 3.Nc3 - see the knight actually moving from b1 to c3 (you might also see it sitting behind the pawn on c4 and diagonally behind the pawn on d4, as well as diagonally in front of the pawn b2, and also see bishop on c1, and maybe more - whatever the mind is capable of)
Next 3...Bb4 - that is actually seeing the bishop move along the diagonal every square starting from f8 to e7 to d6 to c5 to b4. See it then on b4 and maybe even the white knight on c3 and even the white king on e1 and maybe even more.
This is just a random example but whatever your gamescore is continue with as far as the mind is comfortable with. It could be anywheres from 3 moves to who knows how many- stop when the mind tells you to. Play the moves out on your tournament board only as far as you got in your mind. (I call that seeing it in the light of day)
Enough for that day. Dont try again that day.
In your next fresh session (when your mind wants to and you are not distracted - even the next day or 3 days later or whatever try again. Use the same gamescore from the start - go as far as previous and add at least two moves.
It will get easier. Enough for that day.
At next session add some more.
It might take 10 sessions to finish the gamescore - a complete blindfold game visualised! - could take up to 4 weeks to do but I'll bet you it will be much, much faster (unless you are very busy and literally have no available time for sessions).
Do ten interesting gamescores the same way.
Then seek out your chessplaying friend and have another blindfold game. Notice how much easier it is. You will be amazed.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
I think Im the only guy in Canada that teaches blindfold chess, but really no big deal. ;) Any strong player could do it - just get comfortable with playing one game at a time first.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
When I was in college, I was taking a particularly boring and useless "core requirement" course, and I used to take a book written in descriptive, and manually convert it to algebraic by picturing the board/move and writing the correct algebraic. I think it did a lot to help my visualization.Comment
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Re: Blindfold Chess - what do you see?
Is it standard in competitions (or simuls) to have a board visible? Myself I would find it easier to trace things out if I could see the squares.
As a matter of practice, what do you think of playing semi-blind through a paper book with diagrams, and trying to follow the moves in between diagrams. I find even that is challenging if there's more than 6 moves. Do you think that is a valuable exercise for developing chess skill? As opposed to playing through with a board and pieces?Comment
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