Answers.Body: <p>I used to try to imagine the whole board and it always seemed my mind would focus more narrowly. Then, one time when I was doing an exhibition in public versus just one opponent, I suddenly saw the chessboard a different way: it was floating in darkness and the board was translucent, so I could move around the board and see it (and the pieces) from different perspectives. I can't say it improved my play a lot, but it was an amazing experience. I hadn't been seeking a better way. It just appeared to me.</p>
  
  <p>I haven't tried to play blindfold very much over the years, but I have studied chess quite a lot and earned the national master title. I guess our imagination is working hard in any of these ways we do chess.</p>
  
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Answers.Text: A trick to improve visual "coverage" of the board (to avoid a narrow focus) is to fix the eyes on the center of the board and to calculate moves with peripheral vision.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Anton Tarasenko
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Answers.Text: OTB, I sometimes move my eyes around to different parts of the board and for more abstract thinking I may look away altogether from the board. I don't do blindfold often enough to worry about it.
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Answers.UserDisplayName: MarkH
Answers.Body: <p>I do not agree with the first answer saying that blindfold chess does not involve visualising real pieces. On the contrary, I create a 'real' analogy of a chess board with pieces, etc, and interactively update it and manipulate it during the game. I can, however, do it much better using descriptive rather than algebraic notation. This is probably because the pieces take on a more 'real' aspect compared to the sterile numbers in the algebraic.</p>
  
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Body: <p>In “<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/" rel="nofollow">Chess as a Behavioral Model for Cognitive Skill Research</a>,” Mechner writes the following about mental representation of the game by blindfold chess masters:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>But the bombshell, which prompts the present reexamination of
    ‘‘visualization,’’ is this: <strong>blindfold chess masters consistently
    report that what they visualize are not images of pieces or
    chessboards, but abstractions of these with minimal or no physical
    features</strong>. A typical report is, ‘‘I do not visualize real pieces but I
    know where they are.’’</p>
    
    <p>...</p>
    
    <p>The fourteen or so blindfold champions quoted by Hearst and Knott
    describe what they do in these terms: ‘‘no mental pictures,’’
    ‘‘abstract knowledge,’’ ‘‘I know where the pieces are,’’ ‘‘only an
    abstract type of representation,’’ ‘‘only relationships,’’ ‘‘no real
    picture,’’ ‘‘the significance of a piece,’’ ‘‘knowing what combination
    or plan is in progress,’’ ‘‘lines of force,’’ ‘‘pieces are only friend
    or foe, carriers of particular actions,’’ ‘‘sort of formless visions
    of the positions,’’ and so forth. Many of the masters report that they
    have no mental image at all (p.151).</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The masters also confirm that blindfold chess improves their performance in normal chess.</p>
  
  <p>However:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Some of the strongest masters find the actual sight of a chess position to be more distracting than helpful when thinking ahead during a game.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Now, normal chess encourages a physical representation, when the game vision is more like geometry than algebra. That's compelling because humans get used to visual models since childhood. But extending the analogy with mathematics, the "algebraic" form is more powerful.</p>
  
  <p>So in normal chess, a player has to make a choice: developing a visual representation or adopting the blindfold chess relationship model. That's the foundation to build chess memory and calculations on.</p>
  
  <p><em>What approach is more promising in the long run? Which one do top players use?</em></p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-07-05T12:15:29.590Z
Comments.Text: @Bad_Bishop Yep, it's about visual representation vs storing relationships between pieces.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Anton Tarasenko
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-07-08T13:38:29.023Z
Comments.Text: I would argue that what the masters describe is still an (abstract) geometric representation of the position. An algebraic representation would for instance be the game score that led to the position.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Dag Oskar Madsen
Tags: <blindfold-chess><board-vision><visualization>
Title: Mental models in chess
ThreadText: # Mental models in chess
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2016-07-05)
  
  In “[Chess as a Behavioral Model for Cognitive Skill Research](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972788/),” Mechner writes the following about mental representation of the game by blindfold chess masters:
  
  > But the bombshell, which prompts the present reexamination of
  > ‘‘visualization,’’ is this: **blindfold chess masters consistently
  > report that what they visualize are not images of pieces or
  > chessboards, but abstractions of these with minimal or no physical
  > features**. A typical report is, ‘‘I do not visualize real pieces but I
  > know where they are.’’
  >
  > ...
  >
  > The fourteen or so blindfold champions quoted by Hearst and Knott
  > describe what they do in these terms: ‘‘no mental pictures,’’
  > ‘‘abstract knowledge,’’ ‘‘I know where the pieces are,’’ ‘‘only an
  > abstract type of representation,’’ ‘‘only relationships,’’ ‘‘no real
  > picture,’’ ‘‘the significance of a piece,’’ ‘‘knowing what combination
  > or plan is in progress,’’ ‘‘lines of force,’’ ‘‘pieces are only friend
  > or foe, carriers of particular actions,’’ ‘‘sort of formless visions
  > of the positions,’’ and so forth. Many of the masters report that they
  > have no mental image at all (p.151).
  
  The masters also confirm that blindfold chess improves their performance in normal chess.
  
  However:
  
  > Some of the strongest masters find the actual sight of a chess position to be more distracting than helpful when thinking ahead during a game.
  
  Now, normal chess encourages a physical representation, when the game vision is more like geometry than algebra. That's compelling because humans get used to visual models since childhood. But extending the analogy with mathematics, the "algebraic" form is more powerful.
  
  So in normal chess, a player has to make a choice: developing a visual representation or adopting the blindfold chess relationship model. That's the foundation to build chess memory and calculations on.
  
  *What approach is more promising in the long run? Which one do top players use?*
  
  **Tags:** blindfold-chess, board-vision, visualization
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: @Bad_Bishop Yep, it's about visual representation vs storing relationships between pieces.  
  > **username_1**: I would argue that what the masters describe is still an (abstract) geometric representation of the position. An algebraic representation would for instance be the game score that led to the position.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2016-07-05. Score: 3
  
  I used to try to imagine the whole board and it always seemed my mind would focus more narrowly. Then, one time when I was doing an exhibition in public versus just one opponent, I suddenly saw the chessboard a different way: it was floating in darkness and the board was translucent, so I could move around the board and see it (and the pieces) from different perspectives. I can't say it improved my play a lot, but it was an amazing experience. I hadn't been seeking a better way. It just appeared to me.
  
  I haven't tried to play blindfold very much over the years, but I have studied chess quite a lot and earned the national master title. I guess our imagination is working hard in any of these ways we do chess.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: A trick to improve visual "coverage" of the board (to avoid a narrow focus) is to fix the eyes on the center of the board and to calculate moves with peripheral vision.  
  > **username_2**: OTB, I sometimes move my eyes around to different parts of the board and for more abstract thinking I may look away altogether from the board. I don't do blindfold often enough to worry about it.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_3 on 2019-12-18. Score: 2
  
  I do not agree with the first answer saying that blindfold chess does not involve visualising real pieces. On the contrary, I create a 'real' analogy of a chess board with pieces, etc, and interactively update it and manipulate it during the game. I can, however, do it much better using descriptive rather than algebraic notation. This is probably because the pieces take on a more 'real' aspect compared to the sterile numbers in the algebraic.
  
  
  ---
  
  