Thinking gives you wrinkles

It's now two weeks since I played my first semi-blindfold game on ICC, and today marked my eighteenth such game. I have gone much further in that time than I had expected and now think the idea of working gradually from semi-blindfold to blindfold over thirteen stages is needlessly complicated and probably unnecessary.

In retrospect I'm also not entirely sure that the basic semi-blindfold (where all pieces are replaced by tiles) has all that much in common with blindfold, aside from making pattern recognition more difficult - it probably doesn't do much to help your ability to calculate. If I were to suggest a gradual approach towards blindfold to anyone now it would be rather more simple:

Stage i - Remove own pieces only
Stage ii - Remove all pieces
Stage iii - Remove all pieces and also own pawns
Stage iv - Remove all pieces and pawns

Decide when to move onto the next stage based on your own impression of your games and better judgment rather than the results per se. Of course if you are still at the stage where you drop pieces with one move blunders in 'sighted' games then trying to learn blindfold is a waste of your time, in which case the basic semi-blindfold would give you some small taste of what full blindfold is like - but you'd be better off spending your time studying basic tactics.

Although today marked another loss under 'stage iii' conditions I was generally very pleased with the game... and I found the way I lost unexpected, elegant, and quite funny. I had decided that if I got White I would play a gambit line such as the King's Gambit rather than my recent English openings, but with the Black pieces against 1.e4 I stuck to my standard Caro-Kann.

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Although the game was not incredibly complicated the level of concentration you need in blindfold is very high, and after we had been playing a bit over an hour I had managed to get a slight headache - it was similar to how I had felt after playing a tournament game for about two and a half hours. Blindfold is really quite draining.

...Kc5?? Rc6#!!

Now that is a difficult move to anticipate blindfold...I definately wasn't looking out for checkmates at that stage in the game. Such an elegant and unexpected checkmate made the loss easier to bear - I'm happy with 47 of my 48 moves. I think I might as well go the whole hog now... next game will be full blindfold!

I didn't want those pawns anyway

One funny thing about playing chess on ICC with the display settings set as blindfold is the screen you are confronted with when you promote to a piece. In the position below I had just played c2-c1=...?

Wait a minute, which empty box is the queen?

I can now give my very first tip guaranteed to improve your rating during blindfold on ICC - the box on the left is the queen! [From the left it goes Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight].

Having managed two wins and a draw in my last few games I felt it was time to press on and make things a little harder, so today I played my first game without my own pawns visible.

The above picture shows the position as I could see it at the end of my game today. The board is looking pretty empty these days as I approach actual blindfold play. I lost the game, but am generally quite happy with how it went, seeing as I managed to keep track of the everything for a long time despite it getting quite complicated.

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Pawn structre creates the stragetic landscape on which the game of chess is played out, and not being able to see the pawns in blindfold can make the overall position quite a lot harder to grasp. In this game I did not anticipate 12.Qb6+, perhaps because it's unusual to have a check like that across the board despite a closed centre and zero piece trades. In a 'sighted' game the weakness of that diagonal would have been easier to notice.

There is a much greater cognitive load in blindfold. It's a bit like being completely new to chess in that you have to deliberately look at each individual piece. One thing I noticed during this game was that although I managed to keep track of which squares were controlled by my pieces, and also the placement of my pieces for the purpose of checking they were not hanging, I did struggle with noticing where squares were obstructed by my own pieces. This eventually lost me the game and is something I will have to be more aware of in future.

World Champion Vasily Smyslov, 1921-2010

After a long life former world champion Vasily Smyslov passed away today. World chess champion from 1957 to 1958, he was known for his strong and natural style of chess play, with excellent endgame technique and an interest in creating his own compositions.

"The content of a game should be a search for truth, and victory a demonstration of its rightness"

I had seen several of his games in watching lessons at the Polgar Chess University, where he was usually shown displaying strikingly imaginative play. He was near blind in his final ten years but still managed to follow games by hearing the moves read aloud, and was doubtless a strong blindfold player. An example of one of his favourite games can be found here.

I played a semi-blindfold game (with only pawns visible) against an established 1443 on ICC today. Thanks to some slightly weak opening moves by my opponent I managed to direct the game into a somewhat better endgame, which I managed to convert reasonably smoothly. I'm really quite surprised that I have achieved the recent results that I have, seeing as I have only been practicing blindfold a little under two weeks. With that said, I again managed to forget a piece, and when you do that it's only luck if you don't lose because of it.

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Not the most complicated game, but quite satisfying. See annotations in the game viewer for specific comments.

The horsies are tricky

I played three games today, placing only pawns on the board in front of me and trying to remember where everything else was - i.e. Handicap (viii). At least it means I don't have to use the Othello tiles any more.



I was unable to find a human opponent for game one and so played against a computer (ICC 'HEYNOWww', rating 1384). I have played a few casual games versus this computer at various times in the past, and ended up down material at some point on every occasion - although in each case I went on to win. Today would be my first loss.

We remained in fairly typical Queen's Gambit Declined territory (me as black) up until around move 7, when I played ...c5 prematurely and was down a pawn by move 11. It was at around this stage that I completely forgot about a knight I had placed on c5, and upon losing it on move 15 I resigned. Such blunders are not unexpected however, and at least it means that I am now playing at a suitably challenging handicap. I also played my moves a bit too quickly in this game, perhaps in response to the computers instant replies.

Game two was versus a 1532 player on ICC, and is included in the game viewer below.

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It was only after the game was over that I saw that I had forgotten about the knight on d2. Which made me laugh rather. During the game (certainly by move 29) I remember feeling slightly confused in wondering how I could not be up material, bearing in mind the captures I could recall. Perhaps if I had been less interested in finishing the game quickly (I only had ten minutes remaining before I had to leave for work) I would have remembered - or could have reviewed the move sheet, although that's something I have been trying to avoid. But anyway, these things are to be expected when learning blindfold, and the quality of the game was otherwise not entirely terrible. Over all I'm quite positive about the game - a draw versus a 1532 without me having sight of the pieces!

The third game was against an opponent who had never played a standard rated game on ICC, and was my first victory in this 'no pieces' format. I played the black side of a Caro-Kann, although we deviated from theory pretty early (and from his hesitancy I'm not sure he knew the opening).


For the third game in a row my main blunder involved a knight. In the above position I played 9...Bc5, failing to notice the threat of 10.Nxf5.


In the above position I missed the immediate Qxf2 checkmate, instead playing Bxe6. I played Qxf2# on the next move however. Below shows this position as I could see it on the board in front of me.



Interestingly in every game I made a similar blunder, in failing to take account of a knight. My preliminary thoughts are that they may just be harder to see on the board. Remembering where the heavy pieces are has not been a problem, perhaps because they are either somewhere logical or are the centre of attention. Bishops may be easier to see as the way they 'project power' across the board can make them 'feel' fairly obvious. But knights are short range pieces and control squares less conspicuously. Perhaps that makes them harder to deal with in blindfold. As for the pieces that get forgotten, I think that so far they have tended to be ones that had no clear short term role in the position or flow of play.

Amber

The 2010 Amber Chess Tournament is in progress at the moment. Each day the players play two rapid games, one of which blindfold. ICC has been providing great coverage of the event, and todays analysis by GM Akobian and IM Pein was especially good. I remember IM Pein as the host of the 2009 London Chess Classic, which I was fortunate enough to attend, seeing Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura and Ni Hua as well as the top English GMs in person. Getting to see the post game analysis by the players was especially enjoyable.

The position below is from todays Amber blindfold match between Gashimov and Ivanchuk, with black to move.



Ivanchuk played ...Ng4! The strongest move in the position, and not at all obvious. The entire game is very complicated and well worth a look - blindfold inspiration.

Today I played my eleventh semi-blindfold game, this time under Handicap (iv) (i.e. under semi-blindfold conditions, and further with all my pieces except pawns removed), against a 1636 opponent. See below for the starting position as I saw it.



Now this is more like it! I think I will probably play the next ten games under these conditions, unless I unexpectedly find it quite easy. I have decided to set myself a criteria for moving up to the next handicap - I must either have a higher rating than I held prior to this game (1550) after five games, or a rating above 1500 after ten games (if this is not met then I stay at this level until I finally exceed 1500). I think 1500 is a fair threshold as it's ~250 points below my 'sighted' account. If anyone else decides to follow the same gradual approach to learning blindfold I would suggest they consider doing the same - picking a rating threshold they must exceed at every blindfold handicap stage, set a specific amount (e.g. 200 points) below their standard 'sighted' rating.

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I was surprised by how quickly this game went from pretty equal (e.g. after 15.a3) to a win. My opponent resigned quite early, but his position was - as GM S Polgar would put it - "not enviable" (with the h7 knight in particular being "very sad").


The above image shows the end position as I could see it. The game did not get complicated enough to make keeping track of the pieces difficult during the game, although I almost forgot that I had played Qc2. I'm happy with the result, but don't expect the future games to go so smoothly.

A long way to go

Today I played a game with bishops also removed (i.e. 'Handicap (iii)'), although this change had little direct impact because the bishops were traded off pretty quickly. I couldn't find a game with a >1500 opponent despite making various challenges so in the end I made a game with a 1433. See below (annotations included in game viewer).

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Analysing the game I was horrified at some of my moves. I definately have a very long way to go, even without it being full blindfold. See below for some of the crucial blunders. In a 'sighted' game I'm almost certain that I would not have made these particular errors.


The least important of the blunders, but Nxe3 should be an obvious move for black. Although it would open the f file for white, the strength of blacks uncontested dark square bishop would more than make up for it.


Here ...Nxb6 should be an almost automatic move. The c file and c4 square would become extremely weak for white.


With ...Ne6 black would almost dominate whites knight and have excellent play.


...Nxf5 would have required some calculation, but is definately winning for black (the game move was ...Nf3). I include it here because I don't recall seriously considering Nxf5 during the game, I think I just assumed it was bad. Time was somewhat shorter by this point, but perhaps I was simply lazy.

The second handicap

I decided to press on with removing the next couple of pieces from the board - the tiles representing my pair of rooks. It may be that I'm doing this a bit too gradually and carefully, but I'm interested in how I find each stage. The way I envision this going is something like the below.

Basic Semi-blindfold
Handicap (i) - Own K & Q removed
Handicap (ii) - Own K, Q and 2xR removed
Handicap (iii) - Own K, Q, 2xR and 2xB removed
Handicap (iv) - All own pieces except pawns removed
Handicap (v) - As (iv), + opponent K & Q removed
Handicap (vi) - As (iv), + opponent K, Q and 2xR removed
Handicap (vii) - As (iv), + opponent K, Q, 2xR and 2xB removed
Handicap (viii) - All pieces except pawns removed
Handicap (ix) - As (viii), + own c d e and f pawns removed
Handicap (x) - All pieces removed, all own pawns removed
Handicap (xi) - As (x), + opponent c d e and f pawns removed
Handicap (xii) - All pieces and pawns removed
Handicap (xiii) - As (xii), plus game board removed

So that puts me at Handicap (ii) right now. I expect it to get a fair amount more difficult by (iv), and a lot more difficult by (viii). Getting to (viii) is my main target for the foreseeable future - I'm sure that once you can visualise all the pieces reasonably then it will be very helpful when calculating longer variations in normal games. Eventually reaching (xii) would make me very happy. As for playing blindfold without a board, I'm not so bothered about this. While it's a nice party trick I'm not sure it would benefit normal 'sighted' play, because on those occasions you will always have a board in front of you.

Focusing on the present, I played a game today semi blindfold minus the tiles for my king, queen and rooks. The change didn't seem to have much impact on the game, if only because there were few tactics and I achieved a winning position without any real complications. See below for the game (annotations are included in the game viewer).

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It's rare for a game to go quite this smoothly. I was happy with how it went, but think I need to start playing against higher rated opponents. Although the outcome of the game is less important than the practice in working towards blindfold play, difficult complications are more likely to arise against a stronger opponent. Also I would be interested in getting a more accurate picture of what rating my handicapped play strength really is (...and it would be a bit unfair and embarrassing to show too many wins here).


The image above shows the final position as it looked on my chess board. Time to suck it up, remove a couple more pieces and pick some >1500 opponents.

The first handicap

Today I played two games under semi-blindfold, but with the tiles representing my king and queen removed from the game board. It's a pretty trivial 'step up' in difficulty from before (after all, if you can't remember where your king and queen are then you shouldn't be playing chess - or rather you should be playing a lot more!), but then I'm still getting used to semi-blindfold as it is. I think the next step will be to remove the tiles representing my rooks.

I lost the first game from the position seen below (me as white), despite the pawns being locked and the bishops being of opposite colour.



Over all the game was pretty dull. Aside from trying to play c3-c4 at one point despite lacking a c pawn (the piece on c3 was actually a knight as it turned out) I didn't make any sudden unexpected tactical blunders until the endgame, where I seemed unable to really grasp the general position. This lack of strategic vision can be seen in the position below after black 16...b5.



Here it's pretty clear that white should reply with 17. cxb6, but apparently not so obvious when you can't see the pieces. When I look at it now I can immediately see ideas based on using c5 as a knight outpost (after Bxe4), or just play against c6 down the half open c-file. I think I'm going to have to work on making myself look at the position more broadly... it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees (which tree does that tile represent?...okay what about this one?...etc).

Towards the end of this game I locked my bishop outside my pawn chain, only to realise it would achive nothing there and was needed for defence. After that the loss seemed inevitable, although the computer insists I missed drawing chances.

The second game was against the same opponent (though almost twelve hours later in the day), and was rather more interesting. See below (annotations are included in the game viewer).

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I felt I was quite fortunate to be able to turn the game around after 22.gxf7+. Interestingly my 2 piece handicap (no tiles to represent king or queen) got 50% worse after 46...c1=Q, not that I'm complaining! I'm not sure whether the 'two hidden pieces' handicap made the game much more difficult - perhaps I would have realised that 22.gxf7 came with check.


The above image shows the position as I saw it after 20.g6. The only difference in terms of general impression I noticed during the game was that the rooks looked connected on the back rank when they were not, but I was aware of that.

Semi-blindfold Chess

This blog will document my attempt to develop a moderate ability in blindfold chess. I have been playing chess regularly for the past two and a half years, mainly on the internet rather than at any particular club. In the only tournament I have entered (this after I had been playing around eighteen months) I managed a rating of about 1500. At time of writing on ICC I have a standard time control rating of about 1750 (ICC rating is of course quite inflated), and on Chess Tactics Server a rating of 1491 (peak of 1522).

I have always been interested in the idea of playing blindfold chess, partly because some (e.g. GM Christiansen) believe it teaches better visualisation which can help with calculation, and partly simply because it's a fun challenge (perhaps inspired also by the current coverage of the 2010 Amber tournament in Nice).

I have decided to work towards complete blindfold gradually, starting with semi-blindfold and gradually removing the pieces. To do this I play on ICC with the board layout set as all pieces and pawns invisible and with a chess board in front of me. On the board I have been using Othello tiles to represent all pieces and pawns (i.e. I can see whether the tile represents black or white, but nothing else - see image below).

In some ways this is a fairly modest handicap, as remembering which piece is which isn't too difficult. However seeing patterns is more of a challenge - a move which looks obviously good or bad at a glance on a normal board can be quite non-obvious in semi-blindfold. I created a new account on ICC named Semi-blindfold and played six games at 30 minutes per games + 15 seconds per move over the course of a few days. I hadn't known exactly what to expect, so I started by playing against opponents with a relatively lower rating.

In the course of the six games I won five and lost one, the loss being due to a mouse slip in an otherwise unclear position where I had felt slightly worse.

Above is an example showing the position as I could see it on the board in front of me (in this case before the mouse slip 24...Rb3??). I had meant to play Rb4... it seems a mouse slip is somewhat easier to do when the board on screen is blank. See below for the actual position.


So what was different from normal play? Certain moves seemed a lot more difficult to spot. For example in the position below I played 12.Qa4+?? to try to break the pin, overlooking the obvious reply 12...b4 (I had not seen that the d4 knight controlled b4), and should have instead played the necessary 12.Bxd4.

Another example of the problems I found with semi-blindfold occured in the position below.

Here I played Bh5??, intending Bxg6...f4 and picking up the e5 bishop. This overlooked the strength of an immediate f4. As it was Bh5 was rightly met by d6 (Bxg6, hxg6, f4, Be6). In fact, I didn't notice the threat of Bxb3 at all until he played the move - quite an unpleasent surprise.

Below is a sample of one of the semi-blindfold games. I'm not sure it's representative, but it's shorter and more interesting than most of the others. It also carries the lesson that just because you can make a check does not mean it is a good idea... though I haven't often seen it cause as much of a problem as it does in this game.

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Broadly speaking these six games left me with the impression that I could manage semi-blindfold play at a level of perhaps 1400-1500 (standard ICC). At the end of these games my rating was 1552 but I think I was a bit too conservative in some of my choices of opponents. My play was fairly handicapped, but then I expect that to be the case with blindfold even if I do ever become reasonable at it. For that reason after these six games I have decided I am going to start removing pieces (that is, Othello tiles), starting with my king and queen. This shouldn't make it that much harder initially, but it's a start.