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I gained 200 point when I started practicing blindfolded, also great visualization training! A good way to start this is have someone call out squares on the bo

I gained 200 point when I started practicing blindfolded, also great visualization training! A good way to start this is have someone call out squares on the board and you respond with the color. Next start naming the diagonals. Then start moving around a knight, bishop, and then slowly build up your ability to hold a game in your head. Highly recommend! Thanks for this article. The woodpecker method seems like a nice opportunity for a slack bot.

dwohnitmok 5y ago
How long did it take you before you could play a whole game blindfolded?
- someguy101010 5y ago
  I created a new account on lichess and started playing blindfold games right away. It depends on how long the games are and how complicated the position gets but anywhere from 13 to 50 moves I'll be okay. I won two games so far.
zz865 5y ago
Wow, I'd have enough trouble remembering which color I was!
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  I played once on a board where the pieces were red and blue instead of black and white. I was completely messed up... Funny how the brain works. Or maybe it is just me?
  - retzkek 5y ago
    Some people believe that learning with a colored "rainbow chess" set improves retention and pattern recognition. http://home.hu.inter.net/~prochess/rainbow.htm http://home.hu.inter.net/~prochess/rainbow.htm Sort of like syntax highlighting I suppose.
benmmurphy 5y ago
i assume you have a direct mapping in your mind between squares and colors or actually visualize the board but for those that don't you can convert the column letter to a number then add the two numbers together and depending on whether the number is even or odd the square will be black or white. ie: d1 -> 4 + 1 -> 5 -> white. there are a bunch of tricks you can do if you use number,number notation but being able to visualize the board is probably better than relying on numeric tricks.
- someguy101010 5y ago
  At first I used tricks but the more I practiced the better I got.
nefitty 5y ago
I wonder if this would work for programming. Closing your eyes, then recording yourself describing an architecture or module.
- WJW 5y ago
  Measuring skill in programming is much harder than measuring skill in chess. ELO is imperfect but you can be reasonably sure a 2100 will beat a 1200 most of the time. With programming, it's difficult to even make a choice between the person who write a sudoku solver in an afternoon or the person who makes a sturdy website which is secure against all known CVEs (but can't make a sudoku solver, or invert the proverbial binary tree on a whiteboard).
- someguy101010 5y ago
  I noticed improvements in general visualization ability from doing this. I was grinding leetcode during this time and noticed improvements visualizing data structures after I practiced board visualization for a bit.
marcinjachymiak 5y ago
chess.com has a really cool vision game for picking out squares and moves by name: https://www.chess.com/vision https://www.chess.com/vision It seems silly but makes reading chess books and analyzing games much easier. The first time I played with the vision tool for 20 minutes I felt way faster at it already.

dwohnitmok 5y ago

How long did it take you before you could play a whole game blindfolded?

someguy101010 5y ago
I created a new account on lichess and started playing blindfold games right away. It depends on how long the games are and how complicated the position gets but anywhere from 13 to 50 moves I'll be okay. I won two games so far.

zz865 5y ago

Wow, I'd have enough trouble remembering which color I was!

dev_tty01 5y ago
I played once on a board where the pieces were red and blue instead of black and white. I was completely messed up... Funny how the brain works. Or maybe it is just me?
- retzkek 5y ago
  Some people believe that learning with a colored "rainbow chess" set improves retention and pattern recognition. http://home.hu.inter.net/~prochess/rainbow.htm http://home.hu.inter.net/~prochess/rainbow.htm Sort of like syntax highlighting I suppose.

benmmurphy 5y ago

i assume you have a direct mapping in your mind between squares and colors or actually visualize the board but for those that don't you can convert the column letter to a number then add the two numbers together and depending on whether the number is even or odd the square will be black or white. ie: d1 -> 4 + 1 -> 5 -> white. there are a bunch of tricks you can do if you use number,number notation but being able to visualize the board is probably better than relying on numeric tricks.

someguy101010 5y ago
At first I used tricks but the more I practiced the better I got.

nefitty 5y ago

I wonder if this would work for programming. Closing your eyes, then recording yourself describing an architecture or module.

WJW 5y ago
Measuring skill in programming is much harder than measuring skill in chess. ELO is imperfect but you can be reasonably sure a 2100 will beat a 1200 most of the time. With programming, it's difficult to even make a choice between the person who write a sudoku solver in an afternoon or the person who makes a sturdy website which is secure against all known CVEs (but can't make a sudoku solver, or invert the proverbial binary tree on a whiteboard).
someguy101010 5y ago
I noticed improvements in general visualization ability from doing this. I was grinding leetcode during this time and noticed improvements visualizing data structures after I practiced board visualization for a bit.

marcinjachymiak 5y ago

chess.com has a really cool vision game for picking out squares and moves by name: https://www.chess.com/vision https://www.chess.com/vision It seems silly but makes reading chess books and analyzing games much easier. The first time I played with the vision tool for 20 minutes I felt way faster at it already.