I am looking forward to these articles. I have been wanting to practice blindfold chess for a while but I have found it too daunting. I trust that these articles will help me on my journey.
The colour of the square I find quite easy. I started doing this a while ago by summing the squares (a=1, b=2, finding the sum of the x and y axis), which led me to know if the square was black or white. I won't say too much here in case anyone thinks its cheating. But, after a few months of doing this the colours just come to me now. That being said, every other area of my blindfold chess is abysmal.
I'm really sorry - completely forgot to answer your comment.
Firstly, I'm glad you're going to give blindfold practice a go. I'm convinced you can do it.
Second - somebody on twitter pointed out the same method as you for working out the colour of squares. My first thought was that maybe you risk doing maths practice rather than visualisation practice. It's not 'cheating' exactly - you can do it whatever way you want - but at the end of the day what's the point of all this? It's not to be able to identify the colour of squares per se. It's to be able to 'see' our way around a chess board in our minds. Does your method help with that?
Then I thought - well maybe it does. If you know the colour of the square maybe it doesn't matter how you get to that point.
I really don't know the answer to this
Maybe for week 2's exercises try a different method for a while. Just to see what it's like. It will probably take you longer to get the answer - but that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.
All that said - I'm glad you're taking part and following the series. Let me know who you've got on.
For anybody interested in something slightly (but not too much) harder, I'm doing a series of 'skeletal' mating problems tonight (Monday 8th) over on https://twitter.com/unseenchesspod.
Checkmates stripped down to the complete basics.
If they're a bit too tough you can always do the 'what colour are the squares?' for the starting position. And for those looking for something a little more challenging these might be the somethings a little more challenging that your looking for.
Should we make an audio recording of the moves and use that, rather than reading the game record? My idea is doing that is more like actual blindfold chess, and seems like a full-on visualization exercise ... instead of reading the algegraic coordinates and looking them up on an empty board.
What I know for sure from a lot of experience is that there's a big chunk of material who don't find this kind of material easy at all. In fact as I write there's been about 100 response to the poll and about 2/3rds aren't certain that they're good enough to try blindfold training. They're quite wrong! But they believe it.
So in part these early weeks are very consciously pitched at helping change perceptions.
None of which means, of course, that it will therefore be suitable for you.
You may find some of the later weeks of the course more to your level. Or you may even prefer to skip it all together. I will be publishing more difficult material on my newer twitter account (@unseenchesspod) and have been over recent weeks on my original account (@berlin_endgame). You're welcome to try out those instead/ as well as this series.
Still, you might want to stick around for at least one more week as in part II i'll be talking a little bit about what the aim of this introductory material is.
Anyway, thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
I'll keep an eye on your project. Naming the colors of squares isn't a challenge for me but I'm sure that you'll have more challenging tasks down the road.
I am looking forward to these articles. I have been wanting to practice blindfold chess for a while but I have found it too daunting. I trust that these articles will help me on my journey.
The colour of the square I find quite easy. I started doing this a while ago by summing the squares (a=1, b=2, finding the sum of the x and y axis), which led me to know if the square was black or white. I won't say too much here in case anyone thinks its cheating. But, after a few months of doing this the colours just come to me now. That being said, every other area of my blindfold chess is abysmal.
Thanks again!
Owen,
I'm really sorry - completely forgot to answer your comment.
Firstly, I'm glad you're going to give blindfold practice a go. I'm convinced you can do it.
Second - somebody on twitter pointed out the same method as you for working out the colour of squares. My first thought was that maybe you risk doing maths practice rather than visualisation practice. It's not 'cheating' exactly - you can do it whatever way you want - but at the end of the day what's the point of all this? It's not to be able to identify the colour of squares per se. It's to be able to 'see' our way around a chess board in our minds. Does your method help with that?
Then I thought - well maybe it does. If you know the colour of the square maybe it doesn't matter how you get to that point.
I really don't know the answer to this
Maybe for week 2's exercises try a different method for a while. Just to see what it's like. It will probably take you longer to get the answer - but that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.
All that said - I'm glad you're taking part and following the series. Let me know who you've got on.
For anybody interested in something slightly (but not too much) harder, I'm doing a series of 'skeletal' mating problems tonight (Monday 8th) over on https://twitter.com/unseenchesspod.
Checkmates stripped down to the complete basics.
If they're a bit too tough you can always do the 'what colour are the squares?' for the starting position. And for those looking for something a little more challenging these might be the somethings a little more challenging that your looking for.
Should we make an audio recording of the moves and use that, rather than reading the game record? My idea is doing that is more like actual blindfold chess, and seems like a full-on visualization exercise ... instead of reading the algegraic coordinates and looking them up on an empty board.
Too easy.
Hello Richard,
Thanks for dropping by.
What I know for sure from a lot of experience is that there's a big chunk of material who don't find this kind of material easy at all. In fact as I write there's been about 100 response to the poll and about 2/3rds aren't certain that they're good enough to try blindfold training. They're quite wrong! But they believe it.
So in part these early weeks are very consciously pitched at helping change perceptions.
None of which means, of course, that it will therefore be suitable for you.
You may find some of the later weeks of the course more to your level. Or you may even prefer to skip it all together. I will be publishing more difficult material on my newer twitter account (@unseenchesspod) and have been over recent weeks on my original account (@berlin_endgame). You're welcome to try out those instead/ as well as this series.
Still, you might want to stick around for at least one more week as in part II i'll be talking a little bit about what the aim of this introductory material is.
Anyway, thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
I'll keep an eye on your project. Naming the colors of squares isn't a challenge for me but I'm sure that you'll have more challenging tasks down the road.