Impetuous returns

Since the last game I haven't had enough time and concentration to sit down for an extended period and play blindfold, so instead I've been playing rapid chess - the bane of chess improvement! I managed to raise my ICC peak '5 0' rating by 60 points and my peak '15 0' rating by 71 points, which I'm quite happy about. The question is has my recent blindfold practice contributed to these gains?

It's heartening, but at the same time any kind of chess practice probably provides some benefit, and I'm less interested in improving my ability at rapid than I am at standard time controls. And it's standard time controls where I have been stuck around the same level (low 1700's) for quite a long time. The answer to that question is probably a couple of months away.

Today was my seventh blindfold game, and after all the recent rapid chess it seemed incredibly slow and exacting. The match was against a 1185 player and was really quite horrible. Not so much because I made any huge single move blunders as because I could find no plan and seemed to just be pushing pieces and pawns around aimlessly. I didn't deserve anything better than a draw. I'm not going to include the full game here, but do have a few observations about blindfold from the game.



In the position above my opponent had just played 20.a3, and I immediately knew that my move would be ...Nxd3, which I promptly played. However I didn't really 'see' 20.a3 so much as that I could play ...Nxd3, and for quite a while afterwards I played on unaware that the pawn had advanced. I suspect this may be one of the issues to watch out for in blindfold - if you don't stop to think about a move (especially by your opponent) then you won't remember it.

On the other hand later in the game I thought I had played a move which I actually hadn't. Perhaps because I'd thought about playing that move quite a few times, and because it was a quite typical move (Rac8), I seemed to come under the implicit assumption that I had already played that move. Again, something to look out for.

There was also one occasion where my opponent moved their bishop to threaten my queen, and in thinking about moving my queen I remained under the impression that a pawn (which had been being attacked by the bishop in its previous location) was still under threat, and so made my move on the basis of continuing to protect against this 'threat'. I think it's probably just a matter of forcing yourself to think about the overall position as it is after your opponents last move, rather than superficially thinking "I have to move my queen!" but otherwise using your outdated memory of the position.