studying books without setting up all positions

Here is a website which has a database of games from quite a lot of books.

http://www.gambitchess.com/index2.htm

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
yes this is also excellent, if you really want to increase your chess vision, play the games blindfolded as Purdy also suggests!

Tough to read the book then though. 😉

Originally posted by Schumi
Tough to read the book then though. 😉

Lol, yes! one would need a partner for this, he suggests taking a chess book camping with no chess board, i suppose so one must play through them in ones mind. there are many games that are fairly easy to visualize up to a certain point, only because they occur so often, for example the Ruy Lopez or the Open Sicilian.

I still work through a lot of games with books and a board. I find it more enjoyable than using a computer - and I agree that this much is a matter of taste. My personal experience (and treat it please as one person's personal experience) is that the more you do this, the less you need anything. I started to see games in my mind's eye. My brain isn't big enough to do everything blindfolded, but as you gain experience in doing calculations, you don't need to see what is actually on the board.

All that being said, I still miss stuff and make blunders, but there are a lot of calculations that appear in the annotations that I just don't need to move through anymore.

Train your brain!

Originally posted by patzer2007
I still work through a lot of games with books and a board. I find it more enjoyable than using a computer - and I agree that this much is a matter of taste. My personal experience (and treat it please as one person's personal experience) is that the more you do this, the less you need anything. I started to see games in my mind's eye. My brain isn't ...[text shortened]... ear in the annotations that I just don't need to move through anymore.

Train your brain!

This is my ideal approach too. Using a computer allows you to easily step back wards and forwards through variations but using a board requires memory to re-set the pieces. And I think of training memory like training muscles - use it or lose it.