Article: 13790 of rec.games.chess.misc Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.misc Path: info!dregis From: dregis@exeter.ac.uk (D.Regis) Subject: Re: Blindfold: can one learn how? Message-ID: Organization: University of Exeter, UK. References: <57emka$ne5@groa.uct.ac.za> Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 11:55:19 GMT In article <57emka$ne5@groa.uct.ac.za> travers@phantom.eri.uct.ac.za (Travers Waker) writes: >Is being able to play blindfold a skill which can be learned, or is it >something wich only very few people are capable of learning to do due to >some rare mental ability they are born with? [...] >Also, does this clear visualisation come automatically with enough normal >playing and training, or does one have to specificly train ones mind to >visualise the board clearly. (and how would one do that?). I remember reading that when Philidor played TWO blindfold game, it was held as a marvel, one of the finest feats of the human mind that will be regarded with awe and wonder as long as civilisation endures. Then you read about Tony Miles cracking off a couple of dozen in Germany a year or two ago. He did it "straight" i.e. no scoresheets. I think the answer to your questions is: yes! i.e. (1) with more normal chess you get better at playing blind, (2) you would get better faster if you practiced playing blind specifically, and (3) there are people who have unusually clear powers of visualisation, more than you would expect from their skill at chess or how much they've practiced. One easy way to practice would be to log in to one of the free FICS servers using a text-only connection, and type in your moves, that way the machine will honk at you if you play an illegal move. I understand this is pretty much how they run it during the Melody Amber tournaments. >I suppose that normal playing and training does involve a certain amount of >visualisation of the board, but I find I usually visualise the pieces on the >board while calculating variations and staring at the board. The piece >movements are imagined, but the board is real. Yes, I think this is why 'normal' chess helps playing blind, and why talented chessplayers can cope comfortably with playing blindfold simuls. The GMs who do this well perform feats that seem amazing, but I am reminded that parents of our junior club members find it amazing that members of our first team can take on the whole junior club in a simul. and make a 100% score. I got interested in playing blindfold when chatting to a blind player in the bar at a congress, when he challenged me to a blindfold game. Although I had a much higher grade than he, I assumed he'd whip me, but I won pretty quickly - although I never felt I had clear sight of all the board at the same time, just bits of it. Fairly soon after that, on a long car journey with our chess team, the indefatigable Steve Webb started a series of blindfold games, and we could all cope to a certain extent. The things that interested me were: 1. the fact that we could all have a go, while the better players were better blindfold players 2. the things that were easy in blind chess were the things that were easy in normal chess e.g. patterns like standard king's-side hack, munching on the long diagonal with ...Bg7xb2. 3. the things that we tended to miss were the same as in normal chess e.g. generally playing in obscure 'random' positions, and in particular missing strong retreats, long moves of a Queen across a rank, missing back rank mates, and missing unusual moves and ideas like ...Bf6xc3 (which is not a usual square for the B) ...Qc7xBc1 (which is usually protected). Once I realised this, being a cheap sort of player, I started playing for this sort of trap, and collected a handful of scalps! What this all suggests to me is that blindfold play is probably a good indicator of what goes on in the heads of players during a game. I made reference to this in my much-neglected Chess and Psychology musings at "http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/psych.html", when I saw John Nunn's annotations to a Melody Amber blindfold game of his at "http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/chunk.html". It seemed to me that here was a very big clue to the way he was thinking about the position, and he had made an error which perhaps a less experienced player who didn't know about pawn formations could not have made. >I would appreciate it if someone who can play (good) blindfold chess would >respond and answer these questions "Good"? oh dear, too late ;-) > (which I am sure many other people are >interested in too.). I too would look forward to other responses. -- May your pieces harmonise with your Pawn structure and your sacrifices be sound in all variations D _ / "()/~ Dave Regis &8^D* WWW: http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/chess.html || \_/| = DrDave on BICS ~\ / "...what else exists in the world but chess?" _|||__SHEU: ~/sheu.html -- NABOKOV From info!dregis Mon Dec 2 14:53:34 GMT 1996