Blindfold chess

Are you impressed by people who can play chess without seeing the board? For the uninitiated, this is a very impressive display of skill. But it is a skill that can be learned, and you don’t need to be a grandmaster to achieve it. The trick is to start small, with few pieces on the board - or in a diagram. In this review, I will discuss a book that can help you on the way to becoming a blindfold chess wiz.

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What can you expect from this book?

A few years ago, my chess club arranged a small chess display in a local shopping centre. One of the things we did was having someone playing blindfolded against one of the spectators. People around the table were completely blown away by this, and many even asked if it was a trick. (It’s not!)

Although blindfold chess seems amazing, even impossible, to some people, it is a skill that is very attainable. I would even claim that this it is completely unrelated to your playing strength. I am far from the master level myself, but I am still able to play a complete game blindfolded. It is a skill like any other - one that you build through training.

A while back, fellow blogger and friend in the Twitter chess community, Martin (a.k.a. SayChess) announced that he was working on a book of blindfold chess puzzles. Many of us were excited, but time went by and no book came. Or that’s what I thought. In early November last year, Martin posted on Twitter that he needed help with proof reading. A few of us volunteered, and shortly thereafter, the book was finished and published. Cool!

The book has a fairly simple structure. As the title indicates, it is a puzzle book, more specifically endgame puzzles. What sets it apart from most other puzzle books is that the puzzles are presented in text rather than in diagram form. The pieces are indicated by algebraic notation: K = King, Q = Queen, R = Rook, B = Bishop, N = Knight, and pawns are indicated by the name of the square notation, e.g. g2 = a pawn on g2. Some of you may recognize this from the blindfold chess app Noir Chess. Here is an example (not from the book).

White to move and win
W: Ke1, Ng5, Ra1
B: Kg8, g7

Try this puzzle for yourself. If you are having trouble, set the position up on a board, and the solution should be quite easy. Just in case, I have provided a solution is at the end of this post.

The book presents each puzzle on a separate page, and the diagram and solution is on the next page. Thus, there is a minimal risk that you will accidentally see the position and/or solution before attempting to solve it. The 50 puzzles in the book vary in difficulty. Some are fairly easy, although more difficult than the one above. The easiest ones require you to visualize a sequence of a just a few forcing moves, while the hardest ones include lines that are 8-9 moves with several sub-variations that you need to keep track of. Those are not for the feint.

I like this book. Most of all for the overall simplicity. Apart from the foreword/introduction, there is no prose, and the solutions to the puzzles are nice and tight, with a reasonable amount of detail. The downside is that you will not give you an introduction to blindfold visualization. Rather, I would say that you will need to be fairly good at visualization before attempting the puzzles in the book. So if you are inexperienced in this area, and entirely new to blindfold chess, you should probably hone your skills elsewhere before attempting to solve these puzzles. If you are not quite sure if the book is for you, you can read an excerpt on Amazon and try a few puzzles. On the other hand, it’s an inexpensive book, so why not give it a shot?

If you want to find out more about the book, please listen to the interview with Martin on the Perpetual Chess podcast. And if you have the book, and want some input on how to work through it, you can try the study companion on the blog The Abysmal Depths of Chess.

Puzzle solution: Ra8# (The knight covers the king’s flight squares f7 and h7)

Who should read this book?

This book is an excellent companion for intermediate players who are looking to improve their visualization skills. According to Ben "Perpetual Chess" Johnson, the book is suitable for players in the range 1400-2200. You should have a good foundation in basic/intermediate tactics and endgames. This is not a requirement, but if you don’t have this, you might get stuck in the ”wrong” places.

About this book

Author:	Martin B. Justesen
Title:	Blindfold Endgame Visualization: 50 Chess Positions
Type of book:	Endgame, Tactics, Blindfold
Level:	Intermediate

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