"Sight is what you see with your eyes,
Vision is what you see with your mind." http://lessons.chessvision.
net/
There is a gap between what is under your nose and what you actually
notice. It's the gap between what is obvious once your opponent lands
a punch and what you did failed to see beforehand...
Chess uses a big board and it's hard to see how things join up sometimes. How can we see things coming before the accident happens? Can we somehow look ahead better? This is sometimes called sight of the board, or chess visualisation, or chess vision... Shall we call it boardsight, rather than eyesight?
I was putting together a set of mixed exercises (below), and came across
several exercises for developing your boardsight... Here's a
selection.
There's a great free online
exercise from the Chess
Drum |
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with items like: |
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Chessboard tasks (Martin Gardner) | |||
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Knight Dance | |||
The famous Czech IQ test: |
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Visit in turn the squares a1, b1, c1...h1, then h2-a2, a3-h3, etc. WITHOUT ever moving to a square occupied or attacked by a Black Pawn. Not too difficult, but can you beat 5 minutes against the clock? | |||
Blindfold chess | |||
Play
chess
without
the
pieces,
calling
moves
out
to
each
other.
If
you
play
an
illegal
move,
you
lose!
You
need
a
referee
for
this,
who
does
have
the
pieces!
(There's
software
too.)
Or
try
it
when only one player
plays blindfold… |
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Commercial: |
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Chess Eye | |||
A demo offline/online chess visualisation trainer | |||
Chess Vision trainer | |||
You play against the computer on the screen, but the board shows the position two ply behind... If you can manage that, it will hide one quarter of the board! | |||
Professor Chess (Jim Mitch) |
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Jim offers a sample homework set, with questions like: In this position:
Count again, picturing the board two moves hence! What's the fastest way for a [Knight] to move from [a7] to [a6]? Which squares are attacked by both [Qd3] and [Nd2]? |
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Alex Bartashnikov's chess software | |||
A
superb suite that includes
some try-before-you-buy visualisation
training (including blindfold chess). Excellent for youngsters! |
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Detective Chess
(Gerry Quinn) |
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There
are
White
pieces
KQRBN
at
b7,c3,d4,g8
and
g5. The squares a4 and e1 are attacked once each, the square g1 is attacked twice, and the square g7 three times. Where is each White piece? |
I dunno about playing blindfold or with a partly hidden board: I
find playing blindfold a zillion times easier if I have an empty board
to look at, and you will never be without a board during a game.
Maybe the simplest idea is: load up a complete game from a database,
or open a book of chess games, pick
a position half-way through, then imagine the position two moves hence,
and count all the possible White checks and captures for each side.
Then make the two moves, and check to see if you were right. Slap
yourself once for every one you missed. Then pick more
complicated positions. Then look further ahead. Then slap
harder.