I wrote a website where you can play text-based blindfold chess against Stockfish.

I just beat the 600 bot at another site while seeing the squares and 2 highlighted squares indicating the move, and clicking my own 2 squares for my move. I blundered my queen early because the highlightings were faint enough that I thought it played c6 instead of Nc6. I also looked at the move list twice to see if I still had a pawn on the e file. I would not let me push my c pawn, which reminded me I still have a knight on c3. I blundered lots, but so did I. It does know some simple tactics. I mated it by getting my rooks to the 7th rank.

I think it is easier to be shown the notation for each move rather than to see highlighted stuff on a blank board. The blank board does not help me much, but seeing the letters on the screen just once helps me remember chess pieces much better inferring it myself. I'll still use both.

So, my playing strength is at least 600, though I think it is 1000. Actually, I played the adaptive bot that starts at 600 and adjusts during the game. It has beaten me sighted before.

Any idea how strong the level 1 Stockfish is at your blindfold site?

I just beat a 700 rated bot on another site. 40+ move game. I had to look at the move list a few times though. The highlights are very faint and don't say direction or type of chessman. That is harder than seeing notation each move. The notation is way down below the game.

So, I don't know how well I'll do against club players. I think the notation website in this thread is the best website for practice. I just don't know the rating of level 1. It looks pretty good when I view it sighted. 1500?

...

I played blindfolded against someone at the club rated about 1000. He won easily. I forgot piece or pawn locations 4x and had to be told what I can't do. Also he miss heard some of my moves. He was stressed out being responsible for moving my pieces. I had to think 10 seconds before realizing his last move was checkmate.

I then played a sighted game against him and beat him just as easily. So my blindfold strength is definitely a lot weaker than my sighted strength.

The adresss could not be found... Says my browser

@Tobelli said in #23:

The adresss could not be found... Says my browser

The main domain is temporarily unavailable while I was for it to update (should be within 48 hours) but you can use https://www.blindfoldchess.app in the mean time.

@JimmyRustles Nice work! :)

Cool project! That UX though. I feel like I'm back in the 90s ;-)

The 1800 rated player at my club, whom I win 1/5 games against, says the only way he can win a blindfold game is to trade down to an endgame where there are fewer pawns and pieces to keep track of.

I find it interesting how I can forget about a pawn without realizing I forgot anything.

@Chesserroo2 said in #21:

I just beat the 600 bot at another site while seeing the squares and 2 highlighted squares indicating the move, and clicking my own 2 squares for my move. I blundered my queen early because the highlightings were faint enough that I thought it played c6 instead of Nc6. I also looked at the move list twice to see if I still had a pawn on the e file. I would not let me push my c pawn, which reminded me I still have a knight on c3. I blundered lots, but so did I. It does know some simple tactics. I mated it by getting my rooks to the 7th rank.

I think it is easier to be shown the notation for each move rather than to see highlighted stuff on a blank board. The blank board does not help me much, but seeing the letters on the screen just once helps me remember chess pieces much better inferring it myself. I'll still use both.

So, my playing strength is at least 600, though I think it is 1000. Actually, I played the adaptive bot that starts at 600 and adjusts during the game. It has beaten me sighted before.

Any idea how strong the level 1 Stockfish is at your blindfold site?

In theory, it should be about as strong as level 1 on Lichess, but I've found even at 50ms per move, it performs stronger than I expected. I limited it to 30ms and 1.5k nodes at level 1 so it should be a bit weaker now. Not sure how it'd compare to level 1 on lichess now though.

I played level 1 on lichess twice. It is a paper tiger. It attacked me with pins and forks, making me think I would get mated in the opening. But it ever captured anything. It was not allowed to recapture but chose strong looking moves that lead me not to capture. Based on its retreats, I doubt it is node limited. I think it is an overlay that rejects capturing moves unless needed to avoid immediate checkmate.

Ok. I'm about to start game 3. My puzzle storm this morning was above average, so I should be ready. 8:29am over here.

8:51

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bb5 c6 6. Bc4 dxc4 7. Qe2 Qe7 8. Qxe7 Bxe7 9. 0-0 Bf5 10. Nc3 Bxc2 11. Re1 b5 12. b3 b4 13. Bd2 bxc3 14. Bxc3 Nd5 15. Bd2 cxb3 16. axb3 f6 17. Ra5 Nd7 18. Ra6 Nb8 19. b4 Nxa6 20. Rc1 Naxb4 21. Ne1 Bb3 22. Rb1 Nc2 23. Nxc2 Bxc2 24. Rc1 Bd3 25. Rxc6 O-O 26. Rd6 Bxd6 27. g3 Rad8 28. h4 Rfe8 29. Kg2 Re2 30. Kg1 Rxd2

There were at least 6 pawns or pieces whose locations I forgot about. Lots of surprise captures by the computer. No attempted illegal moves by me though.

When I played Ra6 to attack the pawn on c6, I understood Nb8 was to guard the c6 pawn, but I failed to realize the rook was now under attack. Once captured, I was surprised because I thought it was back on a5. I also was wrong a few times about which knight moved and only knew when a pawn moved proving it could not have been that one. I just updated my understanding of the current board and played on.

After Rxd2, I did not know what had been on d2. So I looked at the board. I did not realize I had a d pawn and thought maybe black still did, even though I now recall the black d pawn took my c4 bishop.