I can play blindfolded and I'm nowhere near Kramnik. I've been around 17 hundreds in ELO when I played the most. I usually beat my beginner family members playi

I can play blindfolded and I'm nowhere near Kramnik. I've been around 17 hundreds in ELO when I played the most. I usually beat my beginner family members playing blindfolded against them. I don't think about individual pieces placed in a board but rather interactions and moves. Pieces are not located at random, you can remember where pieces are because you remember the plans, the threats and the moves that lead to a setup. If I had to remember seemingly random arrangements of pieces it would be a completely different story and much harder. Might help that I also played Shogi rather intensely and after being used to Shogi, the chess board feels very small.