Some people may be able to perfectly visualize a board position in their mind, including the whole 8x8 grid and square colors and all pieces. Other people I heard have a condition called aphantasia where they cannot visualize anything in their mind. I am somewhere between those two, and maybe it would be helpful to have some tricks for visualization.
Here is one example of a trick. It could be equally possible to play chess on a board without square colors. In that hypothetical situation, a visualization trick could be to imagine that some of the squares are dark and some are light, and for example a bishop on a dark square would always stay on a dark square no matter where it moved.
Another example I heard on the internet is that someone imagines the board as having 2-square-wide stripes running down the center of the board vertically and horizontally, with 3x3 square blocks in the corners of the board. That one doesn't seem to be helpful for me, but maybe a different method would be helpful.
A non-chess example is that Richard Feynman said he sees the letters in math equations as having colors. This probably helped him understand and apply those equations. Maybe in that example it's synesthesia and cannot be trained, but I'm not sure. I could imagine that some chess players might see some pieces in different colors (not just black pieces or white pieces) in their mind. Like maybe a knight is blue and that helps them remember the position. Or maybe the squares in a knight's checking distance from a kingside castled king are a flashing orange color. I don't know because I don't see the board that way, but I imagine it must be possible.
So if anyone has any helpful or idiosyncratic visualization tricks or quirks please say in the forum!
Here is one example of a trick. It could be equally possible to play chess on a board without square colors. In that hypothetical situation, a visualization trick could be to imagine that some of the squares are dark and some are light, and for example a bishop on a dark square would always stay on a dark square no matter where it moved.
Another example I heard on the internet is that someone imagines the board as having 2-square-wide stripes running down the center of the board vertically and horizontally, with 3x3 square blocks in the corners of the board. That one doesn't seem to be helpful for me, but maybe a different method would be helpful.
A non-chess example is that Richard Feynman said he sees the letters in math equations as having colors. This probably helped him understand and apply those equations. Maybe in that example it's synesthesia and cannot be trained, but I'm not sure. I could imagine that some chess players might see some pieces in different colors (not just black pieces or white pieces) in their mind. Like maybe a knight is blue and that helps them remember the position. Or maybe the squares in a knight's checking distance from a kingside castled king are a flashing orange color. I don't know because I don't see the board that way, but I imagine it must be possible.
So if anyone has any helpful or idiosyncratic visualization tricks or quirks please say in the forum!
