How good are your visualization skills?

Can you read chess books blind? How many moves in can you see in your head before setting it up on a board. The tough thing is that even if you can keep track of some moves, the variations within the move become impossible to handle.

Does anyone else experience this?

I sometimes can, and I do exercises where I do calculation + visualization, and that's after positional assessments and who I think is better and why.  Basically, I scour games for positions with the notation pane off and type my analysis in a Word document.  Sometimes I analyse 20-ply deep!  Sounds impressive, but the time I looked that deeply was with a flurry of queen checks in case white played a sub optimal move.  Here's a sample position from a sample game:

Gata Kamsky vs. Alexander Grischuk, Wch rapid Khanty-Mansyisk (10) 7-6-2013

(European dating system just so you don't think this game was played yesterday)         

My analysis from here:     

White is more active here with connected rooks, more pieces out, black knight out of play apart from preventing Bf4, and a superior structure. White is a pawn down, but with doubled pawns it isn’t much of an advantage for black.  There are opposite colored bishops, which makes for a drawish endgame.  I’d say that black has a simple slight advantage due to his attacking potential against the white king.  Notice how few defenders there are on the white kingside whereas a bishop points to the h3 pawn.

1…Qf6 covers the isolated c6 pawn while activating the queen.  It is the best try I can find for black so far and if I have nothing better will play it.  Playing f5 is also worth considering.  No, I don’t like Qb6+ and e6 must stay covered at all costs. 

1…Qd5 accomplishes this too but also is on the long diagonal.  1….Qd5 2.Be3 holds and is obstructed by his own e4 pawn.

1…Qf6 2.Be3,c5 chasing the knight before the e4 pawn falls 3.Nb3,Nf4 4.Bxf4,Qxf4 I like very much as black.

1…Qf6 2.f3 looks bad for white, trying to exploit the pin against the rook.  What about tactics?  My pieces all seem to have access to the king in some way: 2…Bxh3 3.gxh3,c5 

While the pawn is still at f3 4.Nb3,Qxf3 is excellent for black.

1….Qf6 2.f3,Bxh3 3.gxh3,c5 4.e4,Qg3+ 5.Kh2,cxd4 6.cxd4,Qg3+ 7.Kh1,Qf3+ 8.Kg1,Ra6 9.Rg6+,Bg5 10.Rgxg5+,hxg5 11.Rxg5+,Kh2 12.Rg3 and white is sunk because of Rh3+ and Rh1#.  Whew again!  This game is turning out to be quite the calculation workout!

4...cxd4 5.Kh1,Rxe4 6.Rxe4,Ng3+,Kh2 7.Nxe4 and it’s a bishop vs. knight endgame, though I am a pawn up.  Black has greater piece activity as well, but the win looks like it’s very technique intensive. 

[Note: visualization error here, white can play 7.Bf4,Qf5 8.Bxc7,Rc8 equalizing material, though I like black's chances more as the rook is more active than white's and the black queen is far more active too.  Again, requires technique to win, though black can coordinate the queen and knight to use mating threats against the white king as leverage here]

1…Qf6 is still looking good and still holds, so it’s my final move pushes clock

Use a board to play the actual moves in the game and use visualization for sidelines. If the sidelines are too long for you to handle, look at them on the board too. You'll notice good authors generally give diagrams before long analysis anyway.

Also missed a critical capture.  I was so enthralled with the ...Bxh6 line that I forgot to check all captures, namely 1...Qf6 2.Rxe4,Bf5 3.Nxf5,Qf5 4.Rae1,Nf6 5.f3,Rae8

Obviously I need more practice at this too!

If all I had to do was visualize moves it's like asking how high can I count, it's endless.  If they had to be reasonable moves though...  So the answer is it depends on how complex the position is.

In books I always follow the mainline on a board.  If a variation is long or difficult enough then I follow it on the board too.  If you expended a lot of energy you could go through a book without a board... but to me that turns it into primarily a visualization exercise and you're probably reading the book to focus on the material.

For visualization exercises I've gone back to writing down my solutions to tactical problems.  No notes!  I only write when I'm done calculating.

Seems similar to what scorpion is doing.  Like he's doing it doesn't have to be a tactical position.  It can be anything, and endgame, opening, whatever.  Just check yourself afterwards to see if you were seeing it correctly.

I wonder if I'm thinking the wrong way.. I look at that position.. and the main thing for me as black is that e4 pawn..  I must keep it and I'd love to push it, but the move I'd like to play to support it, f5 fails to Nxc6.. so I look at Qe8, guarding the pawn and supporting the e4 push.  Then my idea is to follow it up with f5 and assuming I don't overlook anything tactically I figure black has a big advantage there.  

And other than maybe calculating a few lines to try and make sure I'm not missing any tricks that's about all the analysis I would spend on the position.  

But then.. maybe that's why I'm stuck at the rating I'm at..

can i improve visual skilz by playin vs comp wit a rook up or sumthin or do i hav 2 play book movez>??

Learn new similar flags every day on chess.com.

I now know Algeria and Welsh flags looks similar enough for me to confuse them heh.

ok, i will use a board. just don't want to do things the wrong way. my coach reads annotated books while traveling on a bus. i just want to make sure that i can use a board and i'm not doing something stupid by doing so.

thanks all.