Visualisation and learnt co-ordinate question

I started the month two visualisation training about ten days ago whilst reviewing and making notes for month one.

Just did day 5 of VT today and found that, for the first time, I was going from visualisation as I had been previously with easier lessons, but I also found myself just knowing the board coordinates more by heart than seeing them in my mind - for example, on a diagonal, one knows that the numbers with go up or down by one and the letters the same.

To try and counter this, once I had a new co-ordinate rather than the visualisation of it, I would then try to visualize its position, which I hope might be helpful. Anyhoo, if there is anyone out there, I wondered if there were any opinions on this? To me, it seems good that the coordinate positions are in my head with far-easier recall than ever before, but also kind of bad that that was often replacing actual visualization.

Oh, as an aside, I am finding that playing through the annotated games on a board is also benefiting my visualisation sort of without trying, I sometimes (especially if it is second playthrough) move the pieces whilst reading the moves rather than looking at the board and get a sort of nebulous idea of the position in my head whilst doing it.

Of course, nebulous is the key word, I certainly don;t have anything like a 4k, 3d, full-board picture in my mind as yet!

In answer to my own question - a few more lessons into this and things are coming along rather well.

I think the major sticking blocks detailed above were the squares in the middle of the board (easier to picture the first set up of a chess board rather than empty squares) and I am getting more of a handle on these as the lessons progress.

I have also been trying to visualise parts of my opening rep in addition with mixed results, sometimes I can see the whole board to move 15 and sometimes things crumble into nothingness way before that - wonder if that has anything to do with how well I know the line?

The other thing I think is helping is doing tactics and ICS stuff OTB - setting up the board requires some memory and visualisation of piece position etc.

Anyhoo, all in all, and pleased with it thus far - getting the system of thinking in my games going on the other hand ...

Very glad to hear you are progressing well

I play at a club and the strongest player there still uses the co-ordinates on the board itself! I find that truly amazing.

One of the most helpful sections to me was the visualisation part. After this I could play blindfold (badly) whereas before I could not play more than a few moves.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks and I know how that strongest player feels - before the ICS I would have to count the ranks and files! No need for that now ... well, maybe a little need when I am playing black as I always tend to go from the white side of the board's co-ordinates currently.

I would love to play some blindfold chess at my chess club (whenever that returns) - nowhere near being able to do so as yet and - and I say this proudly - it might not go well anyways as mine is the sort of a club that if I played a blindfold game I would likely find after five minutes of being blindfolded and having no move from my oppo that they and all spectators had quietly buggered off down to the bar!

Want to train more square recognition? Check this out: https://lichess.org/training/coordinate

My club doesn't do blindfold as most players there can't play it and don't really want to. The most I have managed is to play friends or family blindfold (they can see the board).

At first it's really hard but after a while, you start to see areas of the board accurately. I am yet to see the WHOLE board accurately!

Thanks for the link, I have done similar on chess.com and found it useful.

Agreed on the hard front and double agreed on seeing the full board. I can see it all at the initial starting position (prolly because that is such a familiar position), but after that it goes to the bit of the board I am focussing on (unless I really know the line if it is an opening visualization) in what passes for my mind.

In fact, I might drop the ICS a message about how best to achieve that if the current visualization stuff they have isn't making that happen. I must admit I was surprised they didn''t start with visualising the whole board and the colours of the squares etc - sure, the way they have it does get you used to a lot of the board, but not so much it in totality.

Perhaps I will try learning the colours of the squares and try and get all the board in my mind as a side-exercise?

I don't think anyone can "see" the whole board so don't be discouraged. The exercises evolve and actually do become useful.

You should reserve the ICS exercises and follow the instructions but you can try this: find a good puzzle book and don't worry about solving the problems. Study the initial position making note of the role of each piece (from month 1 if I recall correctly). Doing so will imprint the position in you mind. Only then turn to the solution and work through it from the notation without setting up the board and make your final assessments.

Do not use tactical positions leading to material gain or mate, it is trivial. See if you can find a copy of John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book or Kasparyan's Domination in 2545 Endgame Studies. Both books are challenging and inspiring and the analysis are a reasonable number of ply for this kind of exercise. I used to keep these kind of materials available and whenever I found myself in a waiting situation do the exercises, it is a very effective way to develop your visualization.

Thanks for the tips, PC - sound very useful and defo something I will implement after the initial three months of ICS training is over.

I do not doubt that the ICS exercises become useful and I don't doubt their efficacy in gradually building up visualization (they are already working for me). However, I will be interested to hear from ICS about the whole board visualization. I wonder if it is a case of seeing a small part and then seeing a related small part and putting that together? Either or anyways, I have mailed them and will report back.

As a related aside to my idea of visualizing openings to both help cement opening learning and improving visualisation, I found the following podcast today which helps people do just what I had in mind (though with for mostly famous games and not many at the mo as it looks like they just started up). I've not listened to any as yet, but below is the link if anyone want to check it out.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blindfold-chess/id1497563317

PawnCustodian wrote:I don't think anyone can "see" the whole board...

Really? I know some GMs can play multiple simultaneous games, blindfolded! How could they do that if they can't "see the whole board" ?

BorgQueen wrote:

PawnCustodian wrote:I don't think anyone can "see" the whole board...

Really?  I know some GMs can play multiple simultaneous games, blindfolded!  How could they do that if they can't "see the whole board" ?  

Wish I knew.

I got the the point that I could rattle off the board coordinates, recall positions and interaction of the pieces, follow moves from notation, and even recall miniatures. But I have never been able to visualize the whole board as if it were a photograph.

I am left-brain dominate, maybe a right-brain dominate person experiences visualization differently than I do.  Perhaps you could ask one of the GMs how they experience visualization?

BorgQueen wrote:Really?  I know some GMs can play multiple simultaneous games, blindfolded!  How could they do that if they can't "see the whole board" ?

Yup, this was my thought as well.

PawnCustodian wrote:...  Perhaps you could ask one of the GMs how they experience visualization?

I have done asked the ICS people about it, awaiting a reply.

... in other news, I tried out that visualisation podcast I mentioned a few posts back last night. Interesting results - and bear in mind I did it before going to sleep in bed after the usual eleventy bevvies - in that I was able to follow the moves of a sixteen move game segment (Nezhmetdinov vs. Chernikov, Rostov-on-Don (1962) and get the moves correct.

I did listen to it twice, but the main things I found, and I am still in month one of visualisation - was that I could follow the moves, occasionally see the whole board but not always, and with some effort see some of the threats and reasons for why such and such was done. However, not all threats were apparent as I guess is to be expected - the real eye-opener was that the next day I was able to play to move 16 from memory so I reckons I might well be trying to use this method for my own opening recall and visualization work in the future.

I don't think it has anything to do with left or right brain dominance. I think that the players who can do this have simply spent so much time on the board that it starts to "burn in"... for want of a better term.

I can see areas of the board easily. The problem is to interconnect them coherently.
Just think of an attack against the kingside-castled monarch from White's perspective.

I'm sure you have a similar experience.

Once, while trying to reach some results in autosuggestion, I've read a book recommending to visualise a banana, realistically with dots, spots etc.
After 30 years of occasional intense periods of trials, I'm still unable to get it.
I'm not a visual person at all.

That's how I see it too... areas of the board and they, kind of link... like an obvious one... imagine that king side black castled position, just the king, rook and pawns... but g6 has been pushed... now look at a white queen side fianchetto, the bishop on b2, with a clear view you can easily see that the bishop looks at f6, g7 and h8. Now imagine a knight on g4. You see? They link and I think this link develops with a lot of practice.

It sounds like we are all experiencing Visualization in the same way. There is a quote by Alekhine that his visualization is no different than what we are experiencing.

See: blindfold chess.net blog for the link to the article, "Blindfold Chess: The Memory Factor and Mnemonic Technique" by John Knott.

After reading the article I conclude that the ICS training is spot on for developing the essential skills for blindfold chess, just add hard work as BorgQueen suggests.

Maybe there is hope for us mere mortals...

PawnCustodian wrote:See: blindfold chess.net blog for the link to the article, "Blindfold Chess: The Memory Factor and Mnemonic Technique" by John Knott.

Many thanks for the article, PC - very interesting stuff.

I only got the free section, but might sign up for a free trial to get the whole thing. The sketch made by a blindfold simul player was fascinating. I asked my coach about this toady also (no response from the ICS as yet) and she said she sees one particular area, but just knows where the rest of the pieces are. However, I did think the article hinted that in non-simul games the strong player is able to visualize the whole board, but it takes more mental effort. So perhaps much of the time it is a segmented vision, but other times not.

Perhaps a further question is whether one actually sees the whole of the board in one go when just looking at it with the eyes regardless of visualisation, or whether a certain amount of taking in the whole board is done by moving the eyes around its constituent parts and then formulating the whole picture in a kind of jigsaw fashion?

Either or anyways, I look forward to an ICS response and find the whole thing pretty darned interesting both in a relation to chess, chess improvement from visualization and just the way the grey matter assimilates things.

@Hoskins If you're into ebooks you might consider Google books. They sell it for roughly 13€.

Got a reply from ICS today regarding the whole board or part of the board visualization question, which I hope they won;t mind my posting here (feel free to delete if not appropriate).

ICS wrote:The best is to see well all the pieces on the background and only then to zoom at the local battle.

So, the end goal is to see the whole board on your mind all the time. Very frequent 'tactical' errors are when a player is surprised by an opponent piece coming out of their sight. Even in the practice of top grandmasters, the double attack is very-very frequent met - that's because even 2600 players can't see everything all the time. That happens especially after a series of exchanges or other forced moves.

Board visualization exercises really help a lot. However, that's not a complete training - it should be complemented by tactical exercises (over the board) and real practice or game analysis - where, of course, all the pieces on the board are involved.

So looks like it is the whole board - with a zoom functionality - that is required and aimed for and the first three months are, as suggested in the blurb, just the beginning ...

Thanks for sharing.

As a practical matter I will continue to sing the praises for Kasparyan's Domination in Endgames book as a tool for developing visualization.

Take for example the Knight. When we were first learning the moves it was one of the most fascinating pieces, leaping over squares in attack and defense. Next we learned that if we could get it to the center of the board it could attack a many as eight squares simultaneously.

As we advanced we began to see the Knight in the context of the whole board when we realized the fact the Knight is obstructing the enemy on four diagonals. Finally, visualizing the scope of the Knight with the other pieces on the board we learned how the Knight can interact with allies to dominate the board diagonals! This only becomes apparent when we step away from looking only at the pieces and can visualize both the pieces and the board!

No worries.

Yeah, the knight is a good example ... and, perhaps, the toughest to start to visualise. I certainly found myself counting the squares at first with the knight, but roughly getting the hang of it now.

Question is, if you a BQ continued your visualization studies for a few minutes every day past month three of ICS visualization ... how comes you can't see the whole board?

Hoskins wrote:...Question is, if you a BQ continued your visualization studies for a few minutes every day past month three of ICS visualization ... how comes you can't see the whole board?

For me,... lack of practice. I just don't do the necessary work to do this because I almost never play blindfold so I have no incentive to do it.

From the ICS response and everything I have read on gestalt theory and the issue of chess visualization I'll leave it with my opinion that the semantics is misleading.

If anyone tends to the Geek (like me) check out: http://www.chabris.com/Chabris1992.pdf. I think that it is safe to say the the visualization exercises ICS provides does develop the right-brain skills necessary to advance in chess as shown in the article.

But, as BorgQueen points out , we have to do the work...

Thanks for the Chabris link - I recall enjoying his interview on The Perpetual Chess podcast, which this week allows me nicely to see your link and raise you another:

https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2020/8/29/book-recap-talking-blindfold-chess-with-guest-co-host-jerry-wells

Perhaps it is kismet or the internet is listening, but the above episode (the second most recent) is all about the Knott book you linked to earlier in the thread. More importantly, it contains lots of subsidiary resources for visualisation stuff.

The one from the above that jumped out at me was a chess.com two-part series from Danny Rensch about seeing the whole board and, unlike ICS, started with the square colours and went on to provide a few other interesting exercises. Defo something I will be using in conjunction with the ICS stuff (I am going to go back to, er, square one on the ICS visualisation after training the first three steps of Square awareness from the Rensch/soviet school.

Defo a great companion to the ICS visualisation in both precursor for the basic stuff and then suffix for the more complex stuff after the ICS three months visual is over.

I have failed the visualise course. I'm now on month 5 where the exercise is short mini games and I can't follow the moves. Until now I managed to do the previous lessons, but they took longer and longer to do. Especially queen and knight moves were/are difficult.

Maybe have tried to learn this in wrong way, but I have really tried to visualize the moves and not to count rows/ranks.

Mmmm.... I don't think you have failed it. You probably just need more time and practice.