If it's in an opening I know (QGD: Orthodox, KID, Catalan, Sicilian Dragon and some others.) I can manage ok. Probably only in openings I know because I've played in positions that come from those openings. No one likes facing something new over the board at the best of times, it's worse when you don't have a board.
Not great and I will lose to someone who is playing unimpeded more often than not, but I can follow the game. I did however spend time developing my skills sans chessboard on the belief that being able to visualise a postion would help my tactical sight. Because say you see a trade that is 8 half moves deep. The position that results looks almost nothing like the position before it. At that point I found having the board in front of me to be a hinderance rather than a help. Now if I get to that point I just close my eyes. Has the effect of making the opponent think you are crazy (or asleep 😛)
I think it has helped to a point. I can give some (very limited) pointers to anyone thinking about trying this idea.
Originally posted by mrrowieI used to all the time. Various friends and I would play while riding the bus or whatnot. I haven't done that in about 40 years or thereabouts, though, and I am sure I could not now. I ought to work on my visualization again. I never played simultaneous blindfold though.
[bcan anyone here play blind folded?[/b]
Paul
in order to play that amount of games someone would have to be able to manipulate their own memory amazingly well;
short term memory, for almost everyone, can only hold from 5-9 items of information at any one time, and not usually for more than about 20 seconds without rehearsal (repeating the information either aloud or subvocally).
so lets assume bobby fischer is constantly going over (rehearsing) the poisition on each of the boards on which he is playing, at the same time as thinking ahead however many moves along however many lines (if he thinks 10 moves ahead on 10 games, thats 100 positions hes analysing)
however, as he was able to exactly recall each game the next day, it must have been put in his long term memory. For something to be accurately stored and recalled from long term memory, it must be semantically significant; it must MEAN something to u.
This means that, all the time he's performing mental gymnastics with all the games hes playing, he has to be assigning each position that occurs on each board a separate meaning, for instance a common tool used by memory experts is to make it into a story, so perhaps hed make up a story to go along with each game, then recall the story and hence the game. while analysing the position. while analysing the next however many potential positions.
alternatively perhaps each individual position that occurs has its own personal significance to him - u hear about him glancing at a position on someones board during a tournament, then recalling the exact position, plus detailed analysis, weeks later. either way its incredible
marcussucrammarcussucrammarcus
