Typewriter44 wrote:
Better yet, don't look at the board at all. Blindfolded play improves elo by 100 points on average.
How are you supposed to remember what the board looks like if you're not like a master or something.
Beginner tips: don't look at the board until your opponent moves
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Jan 11, 2022
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#23
BishopTakesH7 wrote:
Typewriter44 wrote:
Better yet, don't look at the board at all. Blindfolded play improves elo by 100 points on average.
How are you supposed to remember what the board looks like if you're not like a master or something.
Look at the board if you forget it. Within 3-4 games you'll be able to play without looking at the board, and if you can't see the board, you can't see blunders, which means you can't make blunders.
Jan 11, 2022
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#24
Onlysane1 wrote:
Early on, players haven't yet learned how to anticipate how the board state will change as pieces move, so it can cause blunders to make plans on how you are going to move before your opponent makes his/her own move.
To avoid this, early on when playing in longer time controls, don't even look at the board until it is your turn. This way you always take your opponent's move into account. Later on as you have gained more experience, you can start planning ahead while waiting for your opponent's move.
This is an amazing insight. Beginners are known for their fixation on their opponents next move and they commonly tend to spend too much time calculating positions. It's a problem chess coaches have been struggling with for ages. "Not looking at the board" is quite a brilliant solution. Simple, yet elegant. I love it.
Jan 11, 2022
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#25
Duckfest wrote:
This is an amazing insight. Beginners are known for their fixation on their opponents next move and they commonly tend to spend too much time calculating positions. It's a problem chess coaches have been struggling with for ages. "Not looking at the board" is quite a brilliant solution. Simple, yet elegant. I love it.
Excuse me? You're saying that it's a bad thing to spend what is effectively extra time calculating?
Jan 11, 2022
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#26
technical_knockout wrote:
emphasis should be placed on avoiding blunders, which can end games immediately. careful consideration of targets & threats should be foremost in your mind at all times... this will assist you in your battle for the initiative & minimize oversights of tricky tactical traps or other dangers.
remaining time is wisely spent (on opponent's move, preferably) answering general positional questions:
which pieces to keep or exchange?
queenside, central or kingside play?
attack, develop, manuever or defend?
what to do with my worst-placed piece?
how do i harmonize my pieces & pawns?
how can i make the imbalances favor me?
time for a bump, people:
don't cater to beginners;
teach them proper habits.
Jan 11, 2022
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#27
Typewriter44 wrote:
Better yet, don't look at the board at all. Blindfolded play improves elo by 100 points on average.
You're actually visualizing the board constantly when playing "sans voire".
DrSpudnik wrote:
Typewriter44 wrote:
Better yet, don't look at the board at all. Blindfolded play improves elo by 100 points on average.
You're actually visualizing the board constantly when playing "sans voire".
Though you are not exactly looking at a physical board...
The furthest I went in a blindfold was around 30 moves on one occasion where I ended up playing Rxf2?? (by then I already forgot that White's rook was on f1 and not on g1) and I lost my rook.
llama47 wrote:
eric0022 wrote:
eric0022 wrote:
llama47 wrote:
Seems like strange advice to not even look at the board for half of the game.
One author recommends using your opponent's turn to take stock of the position without necessarily calculating anything. For beginners perhaps this could be things like finding undefended pieces. Then on your turn you can calculate.
I presume what the OP meant is the very very beginning of a player's chess stages (like the very first day or week), so as to not overwhelm the player himself.
After a certain period of time (possibly one or two weeks), the player could start to slowly incorporate the idea of thinking on his opponent's time as he picks up the sport of chess.
It's like trying to ask a Grade 3 math student to learn the techniques of solving two simultaneous equations in two variables to solve a problem which goes like this.
An apple and a pear have a total mass of 350 grams.
An apple and two identical pears have a total mass of 500 grams.
How heavy is one pear?
We cannot expect to ask the Grade 3 student to use simultaneous equations to do this at his age as the knowledge will overwhelm him.
As he gains valuable techniques in maths, he will eventually (in later grades) learn the ideas of simultaneous equations.
I'll keep it simple: that analogy is as bad as the advice to not look at the board. This topic is ridiculous.
That's all.
Fair point...that analogy isn't exactly the same.
I wonder what the mindset of beginning players are since I can't unwind back to the very time when I started playing chess.
Duckfest wrote:
Onlysane1 wrote:
Early on, players haven't yet learned how to anticipate how the board state will change as pieces move, so it can cause blunders to make plans on how you are going to move before your opponent makes his/her own move.
To avoid this, early on when playing in longer time controls, don't even look at the board until it is your turn. This way you always take your opponent's move into account. Later on as you have gained more experience, you can start planning ahead while waiting for your opponent's move.
This is an amazing insight. Beginners are known for their fixation on their opponents next move and they commonly tend to spend too much time calculating positions. It's a problem chess coaches have been struggling with for ages. "Not looking at the board" is quite a brilliant solution. Simple, yet elegant. I love it.
Even then, to avoid blunders, beginning players must still be able to see what their opponents can do.
A beginning player needs to be able to tell
- what his opponent can do if he makes a move (even if he sees ahead only one move, it's already a step forward)
- and what he can possibly do the move after (planning on their opponent's move).
It's the foundation of a chess journey for beginning player.
Jan 11, 2022
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#31
The premise of the opening post appears to be that if you look at the board while waiting for your opponent to move - that might distract you from what his move objectively does or means after he has moved.
And also from the apparent intentions or rationales of the move ...
Is that a valid premise?
Depends on how you interpret it.
If the board position does in fact cause one to under-attend to the upcoming move after its made ---
or over-attend to the current position - then that could cause negatives.
Another factor possibly supporting the premise - is over-attention to some variations that aren't going to be played because the opponent can only make one move of whatever the many options might be.
But I"m inclined to think that a practice of not looking at the board while waiting for the next move - would cause both under-preparation for the oncoming move possibilities - plus gross inefficiency when it becomes one's turn to move.
Those factors could or would in turn cause failure to put pressure on one's opponent by giving him lots of time to prepare for whatever move one then inefficiently makes.
This whole thing is more paradoxical than one might think.
Stronger players are much better at using the opponent's clock time.
Why?
Because stronger players know better what matters in the position.
And also at determining what are the best reply moves and most likely reply moves.
They can also 'find things wrong' with some of the reply moves as part of using the opponent's time.
Better yet, don't look at the board at all. Blindfolded play improves elo by 100 points on average.