Worthwhile Exercise?

I have an app for android called “chess memory trainer” where you are given a random position from a game and then given a certain amount of time to memorize it, then after the time is up all the pieces are taken off the board and you are asked a question such as “mark all the squares with pieces that were under attack” or “mark all the squares with pieces that were undefended”.

I have yet to get a single problem right, even on “easy” mode where you get 90 seconds to memorize and they put dots on the board as a reminder to where pieces were.

I was thinking that maybe I should take a break from the memory trainer and focus on doing those exercises while being able to see the pieces on the board. So for instance, look at a position and try to quickly identify every piece that is being attacked and every piece that is undefended. If a queen is attacking a pawn that is guarded by another pawn, that first pawn is still considered under attack in this exercise even though it would be really dumb to capture it. Would this be a worthwhile exercise? I know that it certainly won’t hurt my game to do this, but I don’t want to take time away from going over tactics if it won’t be that helpful.

Have any other players done exercises like this? Did you find it helpful or did you not really notice a difference? Did you think it improved your ability to memorize positions and increase board vision?

Thanks in advance.

that's actually a good idea

Yes, these are board vision exercises and they are useful, because they teach you to look at the 'relationships' between the pieces.

Fritz13 has it a a training feature.

Thanks for the responses. I have seen those exercises in Chess Master. I was just confused about how worthwhile it is because nobody ever seems to recommend them. When it comes to getting better, the advice is usually some combination of doing tactics, playing and going over your games, and studying endings. I wonder why no one mentions the exercise of looking at all attacked pieces and all undefended pieces. Is it because most people consider it too basic?

I am trying to improve my thought process when I play chess. Lately I am a lot more careful about looking for my opponents checks, captures, and threats before I move. The only problem is that I’m sort of slow at doing this, so then I get in time trouble and start playing horribly. I hope that these exercises will allow me to go through that process much faster!

I think there's a specific training program in fritz that does exactly what you're describing.