Do you need to be good at blindfold chess to become a GM?

What part do you disagree with?

Blindfold chess is something many, many, many many, non-GMs can do...

What is your question?

You were just saying that you can only play blind chess after becoming a GM. Now you’re saying many non GMs can. I don’t understand what you mean

Do you think you would be the same strength if you weren’t able to do that?

Niska1, llama47 knows what he's talking about. You asked him a question and he answered it. Then when you didn't like the answer you got argumentative and started to put forward flimsy reasons about why you think he's wrong. 

Why bother asking in the first place if you already have your mind made up? Multiple people are telling you that no it wont help yet you're relentlessly pushing this idea because you made up your mind on it and believe it sounds correct.   

What GM or good trainer has ever said "train blindfold chess, I trained blindfold and it helped me tremendously"? Almost nobody has ever said that. Kasparov even said it could be harmful. GMs or others don't train blindfold either, if given an option they use a board. The only thing like that I ever heard was that Spassky tried it a little while preparing for his 1972 title match against Fischer - so how did that go for him. 

The idea that training blindfold will help your game is more or less a fallacy, it won't work very well and probably not at all. 

But the people telling me it won’t help are the ones below my level generally in chess. The players who are telling me it will help are the ones higher than my level. Like @punter99 for instance. I think he’s a chess coach too

He didn't post in this thread and most trainers don't recommend it. 

I am not a coach but in my opinion analyzing or playing blindfold improves your calculation and visualization skills and therefore makes you a better player.

For example Dvoretsky said:

When learning from your book on endgames, should I use a board or try to do the calculations in my mind? What will improve my chess more?

Dvoretsky: "You can do both, you can analyze some complicated line at the board and simultaneously you can try to do something in your mind. Actually, to train yourself in blindfold chess, to see the board, I believe that it is important, I didn't do such kind of training myself but I know for example the opinion of grandmaster Igor Zaitsev, he believed that it's very important for a chess player and he recommended to train blindfold chess and to make blindfold analysis and so on. So I have no certain opinion about it but I believe that perhaps it's useful for a chess player. Logically it should be useful. I can recommend one good book, the book of Jonathan Tisdall, Improve Your Chess Now. There is a chapter in this book the development of this skill. I can recommend to read it and to think about it."

Also Ramesh, the coach of Pragg, does a lot of blindfold training with his students.

@llama47 You say it's mostly genetics. I think anyone can just learn it

"All GM's can play blindfold chess" is not the same that "all the people who can play blindfold chess are GM's".

Will the chapter in the book give me advice on how to train to see the board more clearly instead of seeing parts of it? I try to visualize games but after a few moves I can’t see everything on the board. In any opening I can’t see the black bishop on c8 or f8 or the rooks

Practicing blindfold play must surely help you develop your visualization skills, so it must have some value for players who want to improve

To become a GM is my goal but first I have to get FM norms then IM norms. It’s so unfortunate COVID stopped tournaments.

I don't know. I don't have that book

If you make the troll too obvious it's no fun for anyone.

Quite true @llama47 ! But…. Can an aspiring GM troll the forums while blindfolded? 

I was about to say that.

Interesting, I didn't know Dvoretsky or Zaitsev those views towards blindfold. He does say he "doesn't have a certain opinion of it but perhaps it's useful for the chess player". So he hasn't trained people using it and believed they improved from it. 

Note that there's a big difference betwen traditional blindfold and what they call "blindfold" now where you can see the board. If you can see the board it's a different story because you can see all the diagonals and the knight moves instantly, it's more a case of remembering where the pieces are. 

I don't have anything against blindfold at all, if that's what you want to do by all means go ahead. I just don't see it as having some amazing properties that will train visualization. I've tried blindfold lots of times myself and don't think I gained much.   

Why not just analyze one of the positions you're analyzing and take it off in all the various directions you think it may go? There you're training visualization, it's like "blindfold" but for a position on the board, like what you need in a real game. I don't see a need train it separately from move one. But if you like blindfold go ahead and do it. I am sure it can be a productive part of a chess players' development.  

You're right. Blindfold doesn't necessarily mean playing complete games from move one. I wouldn't recommend to do that everyday or so. But analyzing or solvinig puzzles without moving pieces around is definitely something that should be done frequently.