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What helps you visualize the whole board?

@odoaker2015 #16

"The brain is like a muscle."

It is not even a close. If you are 3 year old kid, your brain can make neural paths much quicker than in later ages. When puberty is finished, you are almost trap to that what you learned already, well basically. Such complex visualization in senior years is practicaly impossible to develop.
There has been research on this. Chess masters and weak players were briefly shown a chess position and then asked to reconstruct that position on a chess board. The chess masters were much faster and more accurate than the weak players. However, when the positions did not come from real games, but were randomly generated, illogical positions, then the performance on this test of the chess masters dropped dramatically.
That is not my opinion. I think it is a matter of practice on regular basis. Even elder people can do. @n321
@odoaker2015 #23

I can't, even I have tried for several months. I can see several moves and several lines infront, but only if look at the board with pieces. When try to close my eyes and imagine I see nothing, not even 1/4 of the board with pieces. If you know how, please let me know.

Upper I wrote is from some psychological study I read long time ago.
Also the adult brain can be trained. For example adult people who become blind by an accident can learn to read braille and can learn to orient themselves by what they hear instead of what they see. People who are right handed and lose their right hand can learn to do everything with their left hand.
@n321 that is exactly what I meant - at least I can imagine structures I have already seen like a fianchetto, but I cannot see things I don't really understand or haven't seen yet... and that makes pretty much sense considering what @tpr said. I guess masters just have seen more positions and understood more in general.
@n321 I also can't visualize the chessboard and pieces in all the details. I don't think that's necessary either. Because normally I see everything right in front of me. I try then only to understand the movements of the chess pieces in my mind. Just like I wrote it in #11. And I find the method presented in the videos quite good. And anyone can really practice that. All you need is a sensible technique. And these videos provide this technique.
@tpr #26

Yes, brain can adopt, after some trauma, as losing sight. But some 90% (or so) of information we collect from eyes only and we rely on that. After losing sight, brain trying to compensates such enormous lost, but making new neural paths is slow process for adults.

I had some excersize in that direction and have some improvements, but when come to imagine chess board with pieces, nothing happens - full blank.

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