Little trick for visualizing/memorizing light & dark squares

I'm sure someone else has to have come up with this idea before, and/or there are probably lots of tricks out there for this! But when I started working on visualization exercises a few weeks ago, I came up with a little mnemonic for quickly identifying square color from just the square name. It's been really useful so I just wanted to come share it! (First time posting please don't eat me lol)

You know how you can have two different light switches wired to one light? Assuming it's wired correctly/conventionally, if you turn on one switch and not the other, the light turns on, regardless of which switch was flipped. If both switches match (regardless of whether they're both up or both down), the light is off.

Well, conveniently, this matches the chessboard! If we assign "even/odd" values to the files (with a = 1, b = 2, and so forth), then we can liken the even/odd values of ranks and files to the state of two light switches. If the "switches" (the even/odd properties of rank and file) match, it's a dark room/square, just like if both light switches are down or up; if they differ, it's a light room/square. Then all we have to think/look for is "match, or no match?" to know!

For instance:

c4: c is the 3rd file, so this square for our purposes is "3,4". The even/odd values don't match, so our "light switches" are in different positions, so we know "the light is on". It's a light square.

f6: f is the 6th file, so this square for our purposes is "6,6". Both are even, so both "light switches" are in the same position, therefore we know "the light is off". It's a dark square.

g5: g is the 7th file, so we get "7,5". Both are odd, switches match, light is off, dark square!

b3: "2,3" = even/odd = light square!

It would work as a formula for any Color A/Color B checked pattern, but conveniently light and dark squares on a properly set up traditional board happen to match exactly the way this turns out with light switches. And the details don't matter once you've got the concept down, all you have to do is quickly mentally check for "match" or "no match", super simple 1/0 logic gate.

I hope my explanation made sense and that this is helpful to someone out there! If I should try to paraphrase a new angle of explaining it or find some visual aids to post, please let me know. Happy visualizing!

Thanks! I started listening to the Invisible Chess podcast to work on visualization, and to start out the guy narrates simple puzzles by naming which pieces are on which squares and telling you "it's mate in three" or whatever. Being able to quickly identify square color helps me make sure I'm imagining bishops in the correct places, keeping things on the right diagonals in my mind, double-check if something is pinning something else, and just generally imagine the board more accurately. Really helpful since visualization is (I've found) a TON harder than playing with visuals haha, I spent a couple-mile walk with my dogs on solving the first simple puzzle in my head even though it would have taken me like five seconds in an app.

It also helps me picture things better when I'm listening to regular chess podcasts or watching people discuss it in videos or whatever on occasions where they name moves or talk about how things relate on the board, and also strategic considerations like considering the color complex in pawn placement and in trading off light or dark squared bishops in certain positions and stuff.

For me, practicing visualization is mainly to make me better at calculation and also for cognitive benefit (I have awful visual imagination/integration and poor visual working memory etc, chess is mega therapeutic for me) but it also makes for a pretty cool party trick too lol. And it's helped me with memorizing classic games (well, the one I've memorized so far, anyway).

I hope that's useful! Glad my explanation wound up making sense in the end, haha

Cool, I was a little worried that I'd just thought of something obvious/already popularly taught lol. Glad it's new and original to at least some people. I hope it comes in handy!

😁

I mean ... Not very impressively or anything haha. And they've each only involved a handful of pieces on the board, and they're pretty basic puzzles. So far I've only bothered with a few, I'm still only a handful of episodes into the Invisible Chess podcast (and they're super short).

For the first couple of puzzles I had to think super hard about them. It took some effort just to memorize the position without looking at a board. So I didn't solve them in one sitting, I'd memorize one then do other stuff and think about it every now and then (and sometimes imagine just the pieces while looking at a blank board, that helps too) until I solved it, like playing a daily Redactle or whatever except the first couple took me multiple days lol.

But they got easier. I've actually slacked on those for a couple weeks now lol, but even just trying it a little bit (along with solving loads of puzzles in a mix of apps, but I was already doing that) has definitely helped my game.

I also memorized my first historic game (the Opera Game, because ASMR chess made a great video teaching how to memorize games and used it as a beautiful and relatively short example ... Come to think of it he's got a newer video on blindfold/invisible chess as well! I love his stuff). And practicing visualization helped with that too I think, and now sometimes if I'm bored or trying to get to sleep I'll try to imagine it playing through in my head. Ooorrrrr I'll forget about it for a while like I have lately and start second-guessing myself a few moves in which I'm doing right now lol.

But yeah point is, I have a pretty crappy visual imagination and literal brain damage from too much moshing and brutal ADHD, so I thought chess would be too hard for me but then it wasn't, and then I thought surely visualizing chess and memorizing games would be too hard for me, but nope they're really super doable and I'd encourage anyone to try both! Makes listening to chess commentary/interviews a lot more illuminating too lol.

It feels sorta like learning to ride a bike, it was whack and wobbly and painstaking at very first (and looking at a blank empty board is like training wheels lol) but with some time and some training wheels it kinda just ... clicked. And now I just need to build the endurance and cardio, y'know? But yeah, highly recommended!

Sorry this is so long, I always suck at brevity despite my best efforts

If that's easier for you, then more power to ya lol! For most people memorizing 64 bits of info won't be easier than learning one mnemonic. Formulas are useful, there's a reason vector images are way more efficient and versatile than bitmaps haha. But yeah I get that the light switch trick is kinda confusing at first, it's hard to explain verbally unfortunately, please lmk if there's any specific confusion I can try to word better or help with

Oww, this is actually helpful Lol, thanks!!!

Thank you! I'm really glad to hear that! 😁

Sure, I'd come up with that ages ago... but I'd forget whether same mean light or dark. The memory trick of using light switches is clever, I like that.

Haha yeah I never assume anything is truly original XD I'm glad the analogy is a useful addition to your method though! Thanks for the feedback!