INVISIBLE CHESS V
Blindfold Chess Training: A Newcomer's Guide
If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.
-Anonymous
Hello everybody, welcome to Week 5 of the Newcomer's Guide to Blindfold Training
A special hello to anyone who arrived here from Ben Johnson's Perpetual Chess Linkfest. This is a course that builds from week to week so if you're new to this sort of thing you may well want to check out Week One and follow along from there.
As the sub-title implies, this is a programme aimed at absolute beginners. If you've already done some blindfold work, or are an established chess player, you might well find the problems and positions I post on twitter - @Unseenchesspod - more your cup of tea.
That said, let's get into it.
Our regular visitors will likely notice that the exercises this week are a step up in difficulty from what we've looked at previously. How do you feel about that? Let me know if you're ready to take it up a notch or whether you feel a little more consolidation time to build up your skills is what you need.
CONSISTENCY
A couple of weeks ago we got an email from Kuba saying that they were enjoying the course and getting a lot out of it. This is always pleasing to hear, of course, but what struck me about their email was when they mentioned almost in passing that the week s/he wrote to us they "only" managed to practice blindfold work 4 days out of 7.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to practice every day, but it's worth remembering that the reality of life is that it often gets in the way. Especially by the time we're five weeks into a new training regime.#
This image for Showing Up comes around again and again on social media. It's great but we need to remember that some days we won't be able to do anything at all. And that's OK as long as we get back on the horse as soon as we can.
The desire to do things 100% is admirable but it can lead to frustration, disappointment and even dropping out altogether when we can't reach that standard. In truth, it really is the case that a job worth doing is better done badly than not at all.
Four days is better than three which in turn is better than two, one or even none.
WEEK FIVE EXERCISES
This week we're taking things up another notch, with some actual real game positions to visualise. We'll start with the simplest possible, though - a king each and one side having a single pawn.
See how you get on. I'll add some thoughts on how to use this material and check whether you've got things correct after I've given all the exercises.
Above all else remember this: the point is not to find the solutions. The point of these exercises is to practice visualising.
NOTE: where I give a square coordinate without a piece indicator - e.g. "a2" as opposed to "Kh1" that means it's a pawn. I tried writing out "Pa2" or similar but it just looked funny.
EXERCISE ONE:
WHITE:
Kh1, a2
BLACK:
Kg8
White to play - what result?
EXERCISE TWO:
WHITE:
Kg5, a2
BLACK:
Kf3
White to play and win
EXERCISE THREE:
WHITE:
Kc6
BLACK: Ka8, h5
White to play - what result?
EXERCISE FOUR:
WHITE:
Ka3, g2
BLACK:
Kb5
White to play and win
(Endgame theory note:- if White can get the king two squares in front of the pawn - i.e. f4, g4 or h4 - White will get a winning position.)
EXERCISE FIVE:
WHITE:
Kf1
BLACK:
Kg3, h3
White to play and draw
EXERCISE SIX:
WHITE:
Kf4
BLACK:
Kh1, h3
White to play and draw
FINDING THE SOLUTIONS
As always, you need to find the way to work with this material that fits you best. However, here's what I think is a good way to start. You can use this as a template and adapt it as you go on if you feel you need to tweak it.
STEP ONE:
Try to visualise the problem and find the answer. If you find things difficult after a few minutes, leave it for a while - maybe even until the next day - then come back to it.
STEP TWO:
If you find visualising any of the exercises too difficult get an empty board to look at - either a real one or something on screen.
If you’ve not tried it before you’ll be amazed how much different it makes.
STEP THREE:
If an empty board isn’t doing the trick for you, break out the pieces and set them up - but DON’T move them about on the board yet.
STEP FOUR:
Once you've attempted the first three steps and have given yourself enough time - and repeated attempts - to give yourself a chance to solve the exercise, you can move on to setting the position up on a board and moving the pieces around.
STEP FIVE:
If you still want to check things, either talk things through with a friend or use an engine or even tablebase - to go over your work.
Getting to step four is not a problem at all - as long as you've given each previous step some time and effort.
And once again -
Above all else remember this: the point is not to find the solutions. The point of these exercises is to practice visualising.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we'll have more exercises - we'll be going back to static positions but with multiple pieces - and I'll also have a few thoughts on Magnus Carlsen's recent interview with Lex Fridman and how - even though we're on a completely different planet as far as chess ability is concerned - his training habits can help inform our own practices.