Imagine or play through variations?

When you are reading chess books, do you actually set up the position on a board/computer and play through the variation(s) or is it better to use your imagination to enhance calculation/visualization skills?  

It may be easier for me to imaging a short single main line of analysis, but most lines of analysis I have come across even in beginner books have multiple parenthetical side-branches of analysis requiring me to keep turning the pages back and forth several dozen times ("what was that main line last move again?", "where was that knight before that 2nd side branch?").

Does the developing player miss out on developing a crucial skill by taking the "easy" way out by just setting up the position and playing through the variations rather than imagining them or does visualization improve enough naturally through consistent training/reading/playing/analysis without having to put forth direct conscious effort, thereby replacing the time spent trying to accurately "imagine" a few instructive examples with exposure to triple the number of examples?

I personally use a real board to go over games...although I can visualize about 5-10 move ahead in some uncomplicated positions (and at times I make mistakes, forgetting a pieces is on a square or that it has moved already and thus not there anymore protecting another piece). I wanted to train blindfold, although I have not found a good site to help me do this...I'll keep looking around the net to find a good one when I have time.

A lot of  annotated books interleave diagrams between 4-6 ply.

That's relaxing for the average player and a good goal to start with if you haven't already managed it without a board. You're right ... the variations tend to go longer. I tend to "LEAVE" variations alone during my first pass and just go over the game as it is played.  Then I come back and start working through the "what if" variations later on.

You want to crawl before you walk first, so make sure you practice on forcing lines (captures/checks/threats) first and then move to more quieter variations with mere positional play.

Why? Learning to visualize forcing lines is more essential for survival OTB ... once you get fairly good at it, the quieter lines will be easier to take in.

Ultimately, be true to yourself. If you want to enjoy reading through games, do it however you want ...use a board, use a computer. If you want to make this an exercise for visualization, set reasonable metrics for what you hope to achieve. Setting a lofty goal for the "I have a life besides Chess" player sets you up for failure ... so always think of improvements in terms of increments. 

One place to start  is to find out what your visualization limit currently is and then train yourself to push +1 or +2 ply ahead of that. 

Chess players can have lives? I thought having any interest in one excluded the other completely.

I used to visualize moves but now I use the analysis thingy, just a lot simpler for going over long variations. I know that it doesn't help for calculating variations in OTB, but it feels so good.

i am not chess geek becuase i don't like play chess .

acai slim

Thanks everyone.

No, I don't want to have a life besides being a world chess champion.  My game suffers when I do other things, and none of those other things are that great anyway.   

There is this program called "Chess Visualization Trainer" (by the folks that created Chess Openings Trainer) that will essentially help you train blindfold by showing your game against Crafty anywhere from 2-15 ply before the actual position you are playing.   Also, I thought Chessmaster XI had some blindfold training feature. 

Good luck ... I mean that sincerely.   No sarcasm ... when you fall in love with a game like this, there's no limit to what one can do in a lifetime.

Thanks Shivsky.

I figure if I aim high, I may one day be in the quadruple digits OTB rating, and then I can honestly reassess.   I state my goals as impossible lofty ones so that some people may give me the "hardcore" advice and some the "balanced life" approach, and that way I have a spectrum of training methods to choose from and see the kind of dedication it may take to make any improvement.

When it comes to harsher training techniques that I've heard of, the following stand out:

1) Michael Maza's 7 Circles tactics training regimen (followed to the letter, as described in his book)

2) Not so much as a full game, but playing out basic endgame positions blindfolded.  Gradually progressing to king and multiple pawn till rook and pawn games from standard winning positions (and further, if skill permits)

3) NM Dan Heisman's Stoyko Exercise (http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Exercises.html)

4) Practicing "won" games vs. a full-strength computer under severe time pressure.

5) Playing over 100s of games (both annotated and otherwise) every day until middle-game patterns/idea start to burn into your head.

Just a few, but these tend to separate the really dedicated vs. the casual player like me who can't + won't make the time to attempt it.

Thanks for the list.  I certainly like #1 and #5, except that I don't see why doing the exact same set of tactics problems over and over is better than doing 7x more different tactics problems with similar themes.  

The rest of the ideas I wonder if some are superfluous, meaning that if you study the other stuff, much of it will come as a "side effect", much like my ability to read and visualize the first few moves of the Ruy even though I have never really tried to train myself to do that.