I'm pretty sure they "chunk" the board into recognizable positions. For example, they can recognize *hey this is an advanced french position with a bad pawn on f3, both kings are castled, and Black's queen is eyeing the weak b pawn* and then reassemble the position in their head after seeing it quickly on the board.
There is a famous study by a scientist and chess player De Groot who found that grandmasters could remember the exact position of 93% of the pieces on a board when the position was pulled from a real game after studying said position for a short period of time compared to amateurs who could hardly remember where 45% of the pieces were.no suprise there. The fascinating part of the study was that when the position was made up of randomly placed pieces on the board, instead of the pieces being in places they naturally could develop to in a real game, the grandmasters fared just as poorly as the amateurs when trying to reconstruct the board's position from memory.
Yeah, it's basically pattern recognition. Once you learn some openings and play a lot of chess, you'll realise every position has a "style" where certain moves are usually the best.
This is the best answer. Think of it like an extension of remembering a telephone number or your social security number. You don’t remember 7-10 random digits. You remember two sets of three numbers and a set of four numbers (or two sets of of two numbers). The little dashes in between the numbers trigger recognizing the set of digits as a phone number/SSN, making it easier to remember. Similar sorts of groupings and labels facilitate memorization of chess boards and positions as well.
There is also an emotional component to memory which might help chess experts remember positions. They might remember the stress of evaluating a difficult position under pressure or the thrill of finding a brilliant move. That’s not all of it, but it’s at least a minor part of it.
Perhaps another example that might be easier to conceptualize is a password. Imagine you have two passwords:
1) aitiriqebtvakpd
2) telephonebanana
Which password is easier to remember or reconstruct? The first is a bunch of random letter and most people will seriously struggle to memorize 15 random letters. The second can be broken down into the words "telephone" and "banana". In that sense, if you know how to spell those words, then you only need to memorize 2 things. Much easier than 15.
For a chess position, a totally random position is like example 1). Hard even for a GM to memorize. A real position is like example 2). There are pawn structures and patterns they can fall back onto to memorize fewer things
Going to add a sidetrack here, the biggest contributor to password strength is *length*, not complexity. In general, a random combination of several words (such as [correcthorsebatterystaple](https://xkcd.com/936/)) is more secure than a shorter but more conplex password (such as $2AdhfjG).
I’ve believed for a long time that chess memory is based on higher-order cognitions in addition to pattern recognition. I eventually did some research to substantiate that point:
Lane, D. M. & Chang, Y. A. (2018). Chess Knowledge Predicts Chess Memory Even After Controlling for Chess Experience: Evidence for the Role of High-Level Processes. Memory & Cognition, 46, 337-348. However, all you have to do to see that memory is more than pattern recognition is watch [this video](https://youtu.be/eMtYKa52hwI?si=VqPg-dm3ys8bk84_) of GM Patrick Wolff thinking out loud while recalling a position. His memory is based in part on his getting a sense of the whole position. A piece that does not play a critical part is hard to remember. He mentions chunks but he talks about much more than that.
I guess that came out wrong. I'm not saying chunking is not a thing. Everyone chunks something in every aspect of life. So, it is certainly a thing.
But what I meant to say is that ability to "SEE" the entire board in your head (not chunks of the board) is definitely a thing.
From his words directly. He couldn't do this when he was 2200. He could only visualize a small part of the board at first in his head. But then he started to do a lot of work on it, such as trying to replay games and positions from books blindfold. And he said this he expanded his visualization to the point where he can see the entire board at once
This is true but it still comes out of pattern recognition for the most part.
Give them a board of truly randomly placed pieces and they won’t be able to recreate it in their head as easily.
I tried doing that, replaying games on my mind just seeing the notation, my god is so hard, it requires all of my brain RAM, but it does get easier, I did not continue to train but I could see you can develop the minds eye, I do wish to know more about this, do gms see clearly the whole board? I only could see chunks and struggle with knowing the Right color of the square, also diagonals are crooked
You can look up Raven interview, he talks about it quite a bit. He is known for playing multiple blindfold games at the same simultaneously.
He clearly states that he can see the entire board at once. While initially he could only do a small chunk, and it was really hard connecting separate chunks with each other.
If I remember correctly, he was saying he just did this kind of thing a lot and his "chunks" were getting bigger and bigger until he could see the whole board at once.
That's what I've been doing for the last week, trying to replay a few games in my mind.
A good comparison might be if you were asked to imagine a board after playing e4 e5. Nf3. You could probably imagine this board and think of a next move. GMs can handle positions much more complicated because they are more experienced.
As others have mentioned chunking the information plays a large part. A castled king with a rook next to him, and three pawns in front of the king is easy to remember as a single item rather than 5 pieces on 5 different squares.
> A good comparison might be if you were asked to imagine a board after playing e4 e5. Nf3. You could probably imagine this board and think of a next move.
I can't imagine the whole board in my head. Obviously I know where all the pieces are. But I can't actually hold the whole image of a board in my head, which is different from knowing where the pieces are. It's too much information to visualize at once. Usually I can only hold a section of the board in my head, like maybe roughly a 4 by 4 square. This matters when I try to calculate more complicated positions, because I sometimes miss long-range moves from pieces outside of the "local area" of the board section in my head. For reference I am 1700 rated on chess.com.
With that said I actually do better calculating when looking at the board, because I can move the pieces on the board in my head this way, and it's easier to hold more information mentally that way. It's like looking at the board, then modifying it mentally with moves, does most of the work of the visualization for me, since the pieces that haven't moved I can look at without needing to visualize it. But looking away from the board and calculating is something I am worse at.
There was a website I saw once (unfortunately I don't know how to find it) where a guy explained how you could slowly expand the number of squares in your mind until you could visualize the whole board.
I'm 2000~ uscf and I can't visualize the board. I 'see' the board when calculating blindfold in a strange way I can't explain. It's like I know by heart that a knight on f3 attacks a pawn on e5, but I can't visually see the pieces.
I mean hell I can barely actually visualize (as in a true image) at all on my head but that doesn’t prevent me from calculating out moves in chess.
This is true for me beyond just chess. Others talk about thinking of things and seeing it in their head just like a movie. That’s not at all how my brain works.
I'm much worse than you, but I also think it's more about remembering than seeing the pieces. I sort of "remember" in the future where pieces and pawns are, what's their job, their relationship and possible moves
I'm willing to bet you never play OTB. I think it's an easy skill for people who play in three dimensions with their hands. It's like telling me you can't visualize your own kitchen.
I play OTB occasionally. Also I definitely can't visualize my own kitchen that well... just a foggy picture with a lot of detail missing. Don't know why you assume I can visualize my kitchen.
You are absolutely right. I believe there have been studies that show that experts are very good at memorizing chess piece diagrams of actual positions, but if you show them random positions they are only slightly better than "good" chess players, and if you show them impossible positions (both bishops on the same color for example) they are actually slightly worse than the "good" amateurs.
> during the game can just close their eyes or look away from the board and start calculating sequences in their head
Are you sure that he was not looking away from the board to check the "ecaluation" bar?
If you let a toddler set up the pieces, they wont be able to remember much more than a beginner. They dont remember each piece, they remember common "chunks". Imagine white has a king on g1, rook on f1 and pawns on h2-g2-f2. This is a very common chunk, so they remember that as 1 single "super piece". Then each centre also has common characteristics, so the najdorf centre for example with black pawns on d6-e5, white pawn on e4, good square on d5. Then each setup white has (1 example is knight on c3, knight on b3, bishop on e2, bishop on e3) has different characteristics, and that is also a single "super piece" if it seen before. And GMs like Hikaru have seen thousands of different chunks, so they can see the board in like 3 chunks and then remember weird characteristics like in this game, the a-pawn is on a3, not a4. That is 4 things to remember, way easier than 64 different squares.
The way you learn this is just exposure. Read books, do puzzles. One recommendation is to do puzzles on pawn endgames on lichess, and only move when you calculated everything out. With pawn endgames, this is usually possible.
>If you let a toddler set up the pieces, they wont be able to remember much more than a beginner. They dont remember each piece, they remember common "chunks". ... they remember that as 1 single "super piece".
Damn genius toddlers.
Sometimes when I play classical games and want to calculate 10-15 move deep lines, i close my eyes, look down and visualise a 2d (chess.com) board in my head. I find it to be much easier that way. Just me though.
They focus on the pawn structure, then their own piece placement will be logical to them and easy, so all they have to keep track of is opponents piece moves mostly
They play OTB. There's a strark difference between the visualization abilities of people who play in a real, 3D board with all their senses and those who play on a low-res, digital recreation of that object by sight alone.
There's a lot more brain growth happening when you physically manipulate a real object many times in 3d space.
You asked "What would be the most effective way to improve my calculation/visualization ability to be able to do this?"
This is what my trainer had me do.
Set up a position from a real game on a real board. Use a diagram from a book or Chess Life magazine. Study it for a fixed amount of time (start with 10 minutes). Then remove all of the pieces, and set it up. How did you do?
Do it again. Again. Again. .....
Now, set up a position and visualize a line that's five or ten moves deep (forcing moves are OK).
Remove all of the pieces, and set up the position that you visualized. How did you do?
I play daily chess. When my opponent moves, I take note (on my phone or computer) and then go in the other room and set it up on a board to study. I have the position in my head and sometimes think of things when I'm not looking at the board.
They visualize exactly like you do, just they do it better and are more practiced at it. When you get more experienced with the game, you are able to know how to ignore 80% of what doesn't matter and focus on the 20% that does. Most Grandmasters themselves will tell you that their ability to play blindfold chess just comes from years and years of calculating lines and memorizing prep in their heads.
Another very important thing to mention is that Grandmasters, even while streaming, don't tell you everything that they see. I watch Daniel Naroditsky's stream and while he'll say what line he's currently calculating, there's one or more tactics that will become playable if his opponent blunders them. Usually a piece defending a square a knight can fork, but then his opponent removes the defense of the square, which allows the knight fork with check, which then a quick resignation will follow, but Daniel himself never mentioned this tactic once.
If you want to get pretty good at this too, my advice would be to do Puzzle Rushes and never moving a piece until you see the whole line. You'll probably do worse than you normally do, but this is how you practice. After a few weeks or months, you'll likely find yourself doing exactly what they do: you're able to see multiple-move tactics and lines from a static position, and able to calculate how the rest of the puzzle will go after it ends.
Best of luck with it. Visualization and calculation is very important in chess. Pattern recognition just helps you minimize how much of it you need to do.
They don’t, they memorize where the pieces are more or less and its a lot of intuition/ pattern recognition, not necessarily actually visualizing the board. Or at the very least, you’re not actually seeing the board from the too down, you’re only ever focusing on an area, whether that be a cluster around your King, a file/ diagonal, and so on at any given time.
I can play blindfold more or less, like at the level of an online 1000 elo player, and most of the time you’re trying to remember where each piece is, and then you check whether the enemy’s knight is covering the square you want to push your pawn to, or if you want to move your king to a darksquare you try to remember which color bishop they traded off.
My blunders when I’m blindfold are ALWAYS forgetting a piece is there. It doesn’t have to be a far or nearby piece, just one that hasn’t moved in a while. Pawns are especially difficult to remember.
The way I practiced was I went on lichess, created a new account, and disabled seeing the pieces. You will likely surprised yourself at your own abilities. This did not noticeably increase my playing strength EXCEPT when I play blindfold.
I'm pretty sure they "chunk" the board into recognizable positions. For example, they can recognize *hey this is an advanced french position with a bad pawn on f3, both kings are castled, and Black's queen is eyeing the weak b pawn* and then reassemble the position in their head after seeing it quickly on the board. There is a famous study by a scientist and chess player De Groot who found that grandmasters could remember the exact position of 93% of the pieces on a board when the position was pulled from a real game after studying said position for a short period of time compared to amateurs who could hardly remember where 45% of the pieces were.no suprise there. The fascinating part of the study was that when the position was made up of randomly placed pieces on the board, instead of the pieces being in places they naturally could develop to in a real game, the grandmasters fared just as poorly as the amateurs when trying to reconstruct the board's position from memory.
Yeah, it's basically pattern recognition. Once you learn some openings and play a lot of chess, you'll realise every position has a "style" where certain moves are usually the best.
This is the best answer. Think of it like an extension of remembering a telephone number or your social security number. You don’t remember 7-10 random digits. You remember two sets of three numbers and a set of four numbers (or two sets of of two numbers). The little dashes in between the numbers trigger recognizing the set of digits as a phone number/SSN, making it easier to remember. Similar sorts of groupings and labels facilitate memorization of chess boards and positions as well. There is also an emotional component to memory which might help chess experts remember positions. They might remember the stress of evaluating a difficult position under pressure or the thrill of finding a brilliant move. That’s not all of it, but it’s at least a minor part of it.
Perhaps another example that might be easier to conceptualize is a password. Imagine you have two passwords: 1) aitiriqebtvakpd 2) telephonebanana Which password is easier to remember or reconstruct? The first is a bunch of random letter and most people will seriously struggle to memorize 15 random letters. The second can be broken down into the words "telephone" and "banana". In that sense, if you know how to spell those words, then you only need to memorize 2 things. Much easier than 15. For a chess position, a totally random position is like example 1). Hard even for a GM to memorize. A real position is like example 2). There are pawn structures and patterns they can fall back onto to memorize fewer things
Going to add a sidetrack here, the biggest contributor to password strength is *length*, not complexity. In general, a random combination of several words (such as [correcthorsebatterystaple](https://xkcd.com/936/)) is more secure than a shorter but more conplex password (such as $2AdhfjG).
I’ve believed for a long time that chess memory is based on higher-order cognitions in addition to pattern recognition. I eventually did some research to substantiate that point: Lane, D. M. & Chang, Y. A. (2018). Chess Knowledge Predicts Chess Memory Even After Controlling for Chess Experience: Evidence for the Role of High-Level Processes. Memory & Cognition, 46, 337-348. However, all you have to do to see that memory is more than pattern recognition is watch [this video](https://youtu.be/eMtYKa52hwI?si=VqPg-dm3ys8bk84_) of GM Patrick Wolff thinking out loud while recalling a position. His memory is based in part on his getting a sense of the whole position. A piece that does not play a critical part is hard to remember. He mentions chunks but he talks about much more than that.
This is actually really interesting, and makes a lot of sense.
from what I heard in Raven's interview. He can picture and visualize the entire board in his head. Not in chunks, but as a whole.
He does that by subconsciously assembling all the chunks in his head.
I guess that came out wrong. I'm not saying chunking is not a thing. Everyone chunks something in every aspect of life. So, it is certainly a thing. But what I meant to say is that ability to "SEE" the entire board in your head (not chunks of the board) is definitely a thing. From his words directly. He couldn't do this when he was 2200. He could only visualize a small part of the board at first in his head. But then he started to do a lot of work on it, such as trying to replay games and positions from books blindfold. And he said this he expanded his visualization to the point where he can see the entire board at once
This is true but it still comes out of pattern recognition for the most part. Give them a board of truly randomly placed pieces and they won’t be able to recreate it in their head as easily.
I tried doing that, replaying games on my mind just seeing the notation, my god is so hard, it requires all of my brain RAM, but it does get easier, I did not continue to train but I could see you can develop the minds eye, I do wish to know more about this, do gms see clearly the whole board? I only could see chunks and struggle with knowing the Right color of the square, also diagonals are crooked
You can look up Raven interview, he talks about it quite a bit. He is known for playing multiple blindfold games at the same simultaneously. He clearly states that he can see the entire board at once. While initially he could only do a small chunk, and it was really hard connecting separate chunks with each other. If I remember correctly, he was saying he just did this kind of thing a lot and his "chunks" were getting bigger and bigger until he could see the whole board at once. That's what I've been doing for the last week, trying to replay a few games in my mind.
A good comparison might be if you were asked to imagine a board after playing e4 e5. Nf3. You could probably imagine this board and think of a next move. GMs can handle positions much more complicated because they are more experienced. As others have mentioned chunking the information plays a large part. A castled king with a rook next to him, and three pawns in front of the king is easy to remember as a single item rather than 5 pieces on 5 different squares.
> A good comparison might be if you were asked to imagine a board after playing e4 e5. Nf3. You could probably imagine this board and think of a next move. I can't imagine the whole board in my head. Obviously I know where all the pieces are. But I can't actually hold the whole image of a board in my head, which is different from knowing where the pieces are. It's too much information to visualize at once. Usually I can only hold a section of the board in my head, like maybe roughly a 4 by 4 square. This matters when I try to calculate more complicated positions, because I sometimes miss long-range moves from pieces outside of the "local area" of the board section in my head. For reference I am 1700 rated on chess.com. With that said I actually do better calculating when looking at the board, because I can move the pieces on the board in my head this way, and it's easier to hold more information mentally that way. It's like looking at the board, then modifying it mentally with moves, does most of the work of the visualization for me, since the pieces that haven't moved I can look at without needing to visualize it. But looking away from the board and calculating is something I am worse at.
There was a website I saw once (unfortunately I don't know how to find it) where a guy explained how you could slowly expand the number of squares in your mind until you could visualize the whole board. I'm 2000~ uscf and I can't visualize the board. I 'see' the board when calculating blindfold in a strange way I can't explain. It's like I know by heart that a knight on f3 attacks a pawn on e5, but I can't visually see the pieces.
I mean hell I can barely actually visualize (as in a true image) at all on my head but that doesn’t prevent me from calculating out moves in chess. This is true for me beyond just chess. Others talk about thinking of things and seeing it in their head just like a movie. That’s not at all how my brain works.
I'm much worse than you, but I also think it's more about remembering than seeing the pieces. I sort of "remember" in the future where pieces and pawns are, what's their job, their relationship and possible moves
I'm willing to bet you never play OTB. I think it's an easy skill for people who play in three dimensions with their hands. It's like telling me you can't visualize your own kitchen.
I play OTB occasionally. Also I definitely can't visualize my own kitchen that well... just a foggy picture with a lot of detail missing. Don't know why you assume I can visualize my kitchen.
Not everyone can visualize. I have no picture in my brain.
try starting with trying to recall colors of the squares blindfolded first
You are absolutely right. I believe there have been studies that show that experts are very good at memorizing chess piece diagrams of actual positions, but if you show them random positions they are only slightly better than "good" chess players, and if you show them impossible positions (both bishops on the same color for example) they are actually slightly worse than the "good" amateurs.
> during the game can just close their eyes or look away from the board and start calculating sequences in their head Are you sure that he was not looking away from the board to check the "ecaluation" bar?
He had it on his screeb
Doom the procebdure
Disquasting I am wommiting
What the hell are you guys on about?
https://x.com/VBkramnik/status/1808032660540792990
Ejaculation bar?
They've played tens of thousands of house and developed their chess pattern recognition
house?
Hours
If you let a toddler set up the pieces, they wont be able to remember much more than a beginner. They dont remember each piece, they remember common "chunks". Imagine white has a king on g1, rook on f1 and pawns on h2-g2-f2. This is a very common chunk, so they remember that as 1 single "super piece". Then each centre also has common characteristics, so the najdorf centre for example with black pawns on d6-e5, white pawn on e4, good square on d5. Then each setup white has (1 example is knight on c3, knight on b3, bishop on e2, bishop on e3) has different characteristics, and that is also a single "super piece" if it seen before. And GMs like Hikaru have seen thousands of different chunks, so they can see the board in like 3 chunks and then remember weird characteristics like in this game, the a-pawn is on a3, not a4. That is 4 things to remember, way easier than 64 different squares. The way you learn this is just exposure. Read books, do puzzles. One recommendation is to do puzzles on pawn endgames on lichess, and only move when you calculated everything out. With pawn endgames, this is usually possible.
>If you let a toddler set up the pieces, they wont be able to remember much more than a beginner. They dont remember each piece, they remember common "chunks". ... they remember that as 1 single "super piece". Damn genius toddlers.
Ye, if you are not a GM by 5 months of age, you can forget about 2600 nowadays
Sometimes when I play classical games and want to calculate 10-15 move deep lines, i close my eyes, look down and visualise a 2d (chess.com) board in my head. I find it to be much easier that way. Just me though.
That idea is so foreign to me. I can't visualize anything at all. I will never be able to do blindfolded chess.
Puzzles, and just try to calculate without looking at the board
Puzzles I guess? It just come naturally after a while
They focus on the pawn structure, then their own piece placement will be logical to them and easy, so all they have to keep track of is opponents piece moves mostly
in my experience some gms can do the whole visualising position blindfold quite well, some can't do it as well or not at all.
They play OTB. There's a strark difference between the visualization abilities of people who play in a real, 3D board with all their senses and those who play on a low-res, digital recreation of that object by sight alone. There's a lot more brain growth happening when you physically manipulate a real object many times in 3d space.
You asked "What would be the most effective way to improve my calculation/visualization ability to be able to do this?" This is what my trainer had me do. Set up a position from a real game on a real board. Use a diagram from a book or Chess Life magazine. Study it for a fixed amount of time (start with 10 minutes). Then remove all of the pieces, and set it up. How did you do? Do it again. Again. Again. ..... Now, set up a position and visualize a line that's five or ten moves deep (forcing moves are OK). Remove all of the pieces, and set up the position that you visualized. How did you do? I play daily chess. When my opponent moves, I take note (on my phone or computer) and then go in the other room and set it up on a board to study. I have the position in my head and sometimes think of things when I'm not looking at the board.
you don't need to, apparently.
but I want to?..
alright, have you looked into stepping stones
They visualize exactly like you do, just they do it better and are more practiced at it. When you get more experienced with the game, you are able to know how to ignore 80% of what doesn't matter and focus on the 20% that does. Most Grandmasters themselves will tell you that their ability to play blindfold chess just comes from years and years of calculating lines and memorizing prep in their heads. Another very important thing to mention is that Grandmasters, even while streaming, don't tell you everything that they see. I watch Daniel Naroditsky's stream and while he'll say what line he's currently calculating, there's one or more tactics that will become playable if his opponent blunders them. Usually a piece defending a square a knight can fork, but then his opponent removes the defense of the square, which allows the knight fork with check, which then a quick resignation will follow, but Daniel himself never mentioned this tactic once. If you want to get pretty good at this too, my advice would be to do Puzzle Rushes and never moving a piece until you see the whole line. You'll probably do worse than you normally do, but this is how you practice. After a few weeks or months, you'll likely find yourself doing exactly what they do: you're able to see multiple-move tactics and lines from a static position, and able to calculate how the rest of the puzzle will go after it ends. Best of luck with it. Visualization and calculation is very important in chess. Pattern recognition just helps you minimize how much of it you need to do.
They don’t, they memorize where the pieces are more or less and its a lot of intuition/ pattern recognition, not necessarily actually visualizing the board. Or at the very least, you’re not actually seeing the board from the too down, you’re only ever focusing on an area, whether that be a cluster around your King, a file/ diagonal, and so on at any given time. I can play blindfold more or less, like at the level of an online 1000 elo player, and most of the time you’re trying to remember where each piece is, and then you check whether the enemy’s knight is covering the square you want to push your pawn to, or if you want to move your king to a darksquare you try to remember which color bishop they traded off. My blunders when I’m blindfold are ALWAYS forgetting a piece is there. It doesn’t have to be a far or nearby piece, just one that hasn’t moved in a while. Pawns are especially difficult to remember. The way I practiced was I went on lichess, created a new account, and disabled seeing the pieces. You will likely surprised yourself at your own abilities. This did not noticeably increase my playing strength EXCEPT when I play blindfold.
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