What do you see?

What do you see when you look at the board during a game?

When I first started, I just saw a jumble of pieces. They had no real meaning.

Then, I began seeing pieces that had intent and meaning.

After that, I started seeing piece coordination. 

Now, I can sometimes see the squares that are being attacked/defended around pieces. Not sure how to describe this one really. Almost like my mind has begun to silently mark the squares and even remember them when I look at another part of the board. Sort of like it does when you are reading sheet music and look away for a moment. Your eyes always know exactly where to return to in the song.

I'm curious about this because I was wondering what someone like Morphy or Magnus sees when they look(ed) at the board.

I see dead people.

I suppose that's OK as long as they are not advising you during your game.

Is having a seance with Bobby Fischer fair?

This thread had a total of 3 responses. None about the topic.

I have this theory as to why many strong players are not good coaches; they don't really know the mechanics behind their game.

They know all the technical things they have learned and observed, but as to how it all or any part of it comes together is either beyond their grasp or cannot be explained.

I feel that the fact that there were no serious responses to this post helps support this theory.

It seems people either don't consider things like what they see when they look at the board or, perhaps, they are just unable to describe it in a meaningful way.

To me, this is an interesting compoent in chess; visualization.

Sure, everyone knows about visualising the piece positions when calculating tactics. But, and I'm sure you would agree, visualization goes well beyond that.

Visualization includes identifying important squares, how a piece's position affects parts of or, the entire board and a host of other important variables on the board.

Even since this thread was started 5 months ago, I have learned to 'see' new things; diags, center influence and piece influences across the board.

Look at this position. What do you see?

Perhaps you have studied the Ruy Lopez a little or played it a bit and can easily see White's LSB pointing its sword directly at Black's king. You probably even see Black's plan to play ..d5.

But, putting aside what you already learned or observed about this particular position, what do you see?

Do you see the 2 great diags leading into White's king? Do you see who controls which of the center squares?

I know for higher rated players, these two things, the diags and center square control, may have become habit by now. But, no doubt, they are still 'seeing' things on the board well beyond the pieces.

What do you see when you look at a position?

I only saw plonk.

I wasn't sure what you meant. So I googled it up.

According to this site: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=plonk

it is either(#4) wine or (#7) expresses deep sexual desire for me.

I'm really hoping it is #4. Unless, of course, it leads to #7.

looks like john musacha was right about the googles den !

Googles is plonk.

Not sure what that means. But it is nice to see John was right about something.