hm intresting,
There was recently something about this on a TV channel.

A board has to many peaces to put in your short memory list ( 7 items = max) But sometimes we can remember more by paterns, and so describe more. The worlds top chess players do this. They have trained so much, that part of the board becomes paterns they are familiar with in their memory. Brain research revealed the Polgar sister remembered such sets, as we do remember faces (even with the same brain region). However when the peaces where put pure randomly on the board, they where unable to remember all their positions. 

Lots of training had resulted in having the 'sets' stored in their long term memory. This part of the memory doesnt have much storage limits, but its complex to get stuff in there (study..) only with lots of study we might be able to get something in it. Beeing good at blinded play means, they are familiar with hundreds or thousends of such patern sets.

One of the polgar sister, also explained later on, that her game style is differnt with lower level players, she told she doesnt need to think about moves, what her mind does is retrieve memories about the next move, she doesnt worie about it, she trusts her long term memory, as a result she moves quickly and mostly faultless, almost without thinking about the move. Her patern matching had evolved beyond a normal person can remember, her brains had adapted to chess, the face recognition part had become a chess part in her mind. (but she can recognise faces too).

nice

The dots indicating where the pieces are located are annoying. I wrote tech support and they said it had something to do with the font. Slightly amusing that they need to use a font when I want to use no pieces at all

I have formally added one hour of blindfold chess to my study regimen.  Right now I am training. I study 3 hours opening theory, 1 hours tactics and now 1 hour blindfold.

I also spend a couple random hours a day playing here, playchess, and a day as well as reading/writing blogs and general internet browsing.  Television is no longer apart of my mental exercise.

I have noticed all kinds of things. Diet plays an important part in concentration. Sleeping habits play an important part.  Exercise or the lack of hurt. Finally, I can't concentrate with anyone around me at all. No family members, no one walking around nothing. I have to have complete silence and have even been seen wearing headphones while in a room alone (no music playing).

The slightest interruption right now seems to through me off.

I tried playing some blindfold chess today too (after reading this post here) and I was surprised that it was quite easy. I expected it to be harder, but with a board in front of me (with dots for locations of the pieces) I was still able to visualize the position throughout the game.

First I tried playing some blitz games against Rybka, and I found out the problem is that Rybka is just too strong for me ;) Then I switched to handicap mode (set at the maximum strength of 2125) and got an endgame with a piece ahead (and went for a repetition because of time trouble).

Maybe I'll post a blog post about those games soon. Anyway thanks for reminding me of the option of playing blindfold chess myself! :)

I think playing blindfold is stellar training. A well known author solving endgame problems "blindfold" combining the "best of two worlds" (i.e. endgame training and visualization)

I never considered playing blindfold, and I didn't know Fritz could be set up that way.  I'll give it a try. Thanks for the challenge.

SonofPearl,

After playing that game, I was very excited. Even though I lost.  I could see that I was loosing and was able to hold the game much longer than I thought.  The Amber tournament has motivated me to step up my visualization training.

I'm always impressed when people manage to play blindfold at all.  I've tried it once or twice before and eventually lose track of the position...well done on your play here.