(Tried searching, nothing found. Also, sorry if it's in the wrong forum section.)

I've been playing chess online for a few years now. Pretty much daily. I think I've made fairly decent progress. From absolutely horrible (playing 1. a4 to be able to bring out the rook quickly) to somewhat better (sticking to 1. e4). However, one thing bugs me ridiculously.

When I read annotations, I can never "keep up". I look at a diagram and read "34. Nc3" and it just takes me forever to visualize the move. This gets particularly annoying when studying openings. The Ruy Lopez is by far my favorite, and I can keep up to about "3. Bb5". Then every following move takes so much energy to visualize that the whole point of studying the opening is pretty much wasted.

I've got a few books on chess that I would like to be able to read without setting up an actual board for every position.

I would love to be able to look at a chess board and without thinking about it being able to say "Well... f6 is probably a good move.". But always when I do I get it wrong the first time, and the second time, and by the third time I've made such a fool out of myself that nobody will trust my judgement anyhow.

So, anyone got any good pointers or magic tricks? Or is the only way to just cram, like for an exam?

For clarification, do you mean visualization with a diagram or a "real" chess board?

To some people, it makes no difference, but to others, reading one is not the same as the other.

Both actually. Take for instance this position (taken from a big chess blog, entirely withouth permission :) ).

White to move. Now I can stare at the diagram, and if I'm lucky I'll find a good move. But in my head it's like "Move the queen from here to here". If I want to convert it to annotation, for example "Qf7+", I have to either start counting the squares and then going "a, b, c, d..." or navigate to the square starting from the markings (if there are any). It's not like the board is huge, and I'm (I must say) otherwise a pretty bright chap. So why is it so impossible to "internalize" an 8x8 board!?

(And yes, Qf7+ would be a terrible move. Just an example.)

Edit: I could set up the position on an actual physical board and still have the same problem.

 

I used to have this problem too. I've gotten a looot better at it.

First of all, divide the board in half down the middle both vertically and horizontally. Keep the quadrants roughly in mind for the first while. Above the middle line? 5. Below the top square? 7. Kindof thing.

8
7
6
5

------------

4
3
2
1

 

A B C D                                                 E F G H

 

Also, here's what I did that changed everything. I got Kasparov's memorable games and committed to playing through them all at home, with just the move list. The first few times I kept making mistakes, as I'd notice that I need to make a move later that is illegal. It was really frustrating to be forced back a number of moves and a few times I completely reset the board and started over.

I said every move out loud as I made them. You can do this with a chess friend also. Have him read out the moves, and you make them.

I use GUIs from time to time for post-analyzis of games. To assess when and why a game was lost/won. But it gets so comfortable. You never really have to learn that annotation. The program just suggests a line and you click "forward", "backward". It's analogous to using a calculator to do division. It's quick and easy, but it won't teach you how do divide 245523 by 17. I want to learn that long division!

Thanks Rael!

It was something like that I was hoping for. Didn't think about downsizing the board that way. It actually makes sense.

And for the cramming part, that was pretty much what I wanted to avoid. But I guess there are no shortcuts. I should perhaps get the same book? Cheers.

humble wrote:

Both actually. Take for instance this position (taken from a big chess blog, entirely withouth permission :) ).

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The answer is 1.Rg8+ Kxg8 2.Qf8#

And I wrote that down without scrolling up and looking at the board again.

I got this skill by reading books that ask you to write down the answer for self-tests. You don't need to visualize the notation, just visualize your next move and write it down/say it out loud. Check your answer and see if it's right.

Do that a lot, and you'll be able to do that in no time.

Also, play with boards that have notation and say your moves aloud, and after a while, try with boards that don't have notation, and you'll notice that you can also say your moves aloud with them too.

[quote=dwaxe]

The answer is 1.Rg8+ Kxg8 2.Qf8#

And I wrote that down without scrolling up and looking at the board again.[/quote]

Well, nice memorization but not quite the answer I'm afraid. Black has way better options than Kxg8.

CMX suggests
+2.37    1.Rg8+ Qxg8 2.Qf6+ Kh6 3.Qf4+ Rg5
            4.h4 Qe8 5.hxg5+ Kg7 6.e5 Qf7 7.Qxf7+
            Rxf7 8.Rd1 Rf8 9.d7 Rd8 10.e6 Kf8
            11.Kg2

Not quite a mate in one puzzle..

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dwaxe, can you suggest such a book?  I don't have anything like this and am interested.  Thanks!