Supporting a child playing blind

My 5yo tried to play me at chess on the train recently. But he wanted to play in his head. With no knowledge of the square names he just said he loves the pawn in front of x. Now I could only play for a few moves before I lost the board in my head. I have no idea if he was better at keeping it in his head because I couldn’t do it.

Is this a sign of something amazing or just a visual learner? He can’t beat me at chess yet. When we play I start without a Queen and only 1 rook to make it more fair and make the game last longer. But he can beat some of the easier AI bots in the app.

I’d love some ideas of how to support him in this interest. He rarely finishes a game against me because he pulls out whenever he is obviously losing. But he doesn’t mind losing to a bot. He loves playing against himself though.

Hire a coach. Sounds like he has huge potential, being both capable of visualising to a certain extent and most importantly motivated