Blindfold Victory

For some strange reason, I find blindfold play easier than most. I've only ever attempted 4 blindfold games lifetime but am 4-0. Now granted, my opponents have not been top notch players. In fact I prefer this. I find most casual players find a blindfold exhibition impressive and it's a bonus for me because they are almost guaranteed to play some weird opening where positional familiarity will not aid me.

I did miss a few moves in this game and blundered a piece but all in all it was a nice win that I felt good about. 

For the record, I'm USCF 1715. I'm playing black in this game. Note his knight on b1 makes two moves the entire game, and one of them is Nb1.

Wow... I can't believe you actually won blindfolded, did you feel around the board much? Otherwise how could you have trapped his knight?

Very nice win for a blindfold game! I've tried playing blindfold a couple times against weaker players, but I can only reach around move 15-20 or so, and only if I am familiar with the opening lines... Any tips on how to improve?

 No I did it all in my head. About the knight, when he went back to b1, his home square, I knew he only had 3 places to go, a3 which there was a pawn, c3 and b2 where he already was. After he played back to b1 i knew my B on a5 controlled d2 and c3 and a3 was not available. So any piece threat wins the knight outright.

Great! I am practising blindfold play a little bit, but my usual limits are around 15 moves so I've got to practice more! Good blindfold game 

Hard to say Frecky, I've just always been "pretty good at it". I'll offer my opinion but I am by no means an expter at this blindfold play. Two things come to mind though.

One is I believe a player must have an unflenching familiarty with a chess board, f5 is white, c5 is black, a8 is white. I think a player needs to know the board perfectly and be comfortable calling out square colors without looking.

It takes some practice. Michael de la Maza recommended making notecards with the name of the square on one-side and the color on the back. Also he recommends pulling out a chess board and pointing to a random square, open your eyes and call out the square name as quickly as you can. Ive developed this familiarity with the board and I think it helps immensely.

Second thing I do that helps me keep a mental tally of the battlefield is to take active mental notes.

For example:

"Ok he played 1.e4, theres a pawn on e4, that's a light square. The d1-h5 and f1-a6 diagonals are now open. Both of these diagonals are light-squares.  I will play c5. My d8-a5 diagonal is now open so my Queen can go to a5 giving a check later if need be. He has played Nc3, either going for the closed or the Grand Prix attack. The c3 knight defends e4 and can jump to d5, b5, e4, e2, a5 and of course back to b1."

This sounds very troublesome but it pays huge dividends later on.  All of that information will eventually be useful. If you rely too much on your opening knowledge you will at some point just be calling out memorized moves instead of actually visualizing the imbalacnes on the board.

I am trying to play blindfold, but I always seem to lose focus in the end.

For a USCF 1715, your ability to keep the board in your head is stunning. I tend to play very strong Blindfold overall, until I ruin it with the odd blunder (and I mean blunder, e.g. in my last game I left my Queen open to a royal fork - until that point,  I was a Bishop up and in control against quite a strong player who wasn't playing blindfolded).

Thanks for the advice, crashfreze. I think I am lacking that familiarity with the board you are talking about. I'll work on that!

When you play blindfold dont you worry about the firing squad?

I think your wrong, I have tried it, and after a bit of practise, you can do it to quite a high standard.

Good game.

You're not the first person to accuse me of lying about this but on my honor I'm not. Believe me, if I were going to fabricate lies for respect I'd photoshop pictures of me beside Katy Perry instead of showing off a blindfold game to a bunch of nerds.

For some reason, blindfold play just comes easier to me than to most. I still make huge mistakes of course as evidenced by me missing winning a knight and by dropping my knight on d3.

Leave it to a Scot :)