Following the moves from the black’s point of view I am an intermediate level chess enthusiast. I have noticed that one of the main hindrances that slows down my progress is that I have never been able to internalize the algebraic notation and lack a good “board sense”. I know that Algebraic Notation is a pretty simple and straightforward system and I have actually no problem reading the moves and playing them over the board. The problem is that, when I am playing black, I am not able to look at the board and without first reading the grids name the exact square right away.

It is relatively easy to do this when you are playing white and I don't have much trouble doing that, but when it comes to the black side all of a sudden everything is reversed and I have to sit back and think what square is what and that sometimes becomes annoying to the point where it prevents me from concentrating on the moves.

In all chess books diagrams are shown from the point of view of white and because of that I never tried to follow games from the opposite side. When I look at the videos where grandmasters are quickly analyzing their games, I see that they have absolutely no problem following the games and talking about moves from the black’s point of view. So I guess that’s something I should also be able to do, in case I want to improve my chess.

Incidentally, I noticed that I don't have that problem with descriptive notation. I can play black's moves very quickly on the board when I am reading or analyzing moves written using that system of notation. The reason is that descriptive notation is “relative” but algebraic notation is “absolute” and only one name is assigned to the squares no matter which side is talking. Alas, descriptive notation is obsolete and I have to find a way to deal with the standard system.

Has anyone else experienced the same problem, and if yes, how have they been able to solve this? Any tips on visualizing the board and following the moves rapidly from the black side is also appreciated.
I would recommend using chess eye, here's a video about it, it will help you memorize the board, difficult but fun!

EDIT

I don't think this is the answer you're looking for, but I'm answering anyway since there's no other answer and since my initial answer didn't help much, i feel that i must improve my answer even if it won't help you. Here's how i visualize, I don't follow from black perspective nor white. I see them as a list, such as this.

I memorized only the A rank, especially a1 and a8 and worked my way through the board using maths, not memorization, i think maths helps more, if you calculate it, it makes sense to you. For example if you tell me to memorize how to derive an equation, I'll never understand it and I will find it hard to remember, if you tell me the idea behind it and tell me why i am doing it, i will understand and do it fast.

I'm not a fan of memorization and i know that modern chess is all about memorization, criticize me all you want.

I just remember that a1 is black, therefore a4 has to be white, a8 has to be white as well, count them on your fingers.

b1 is directly above a1 so it's the opposite color, b1 is white, b4 has to be black, b8 has to be black.

A pattern is visible here


x1 color is different than x8
x4 = x8
x8 = y1


Not only that a1 and c1 are black, because there's always x black followed by y white, you can say that all the odd rank numbers starts with black ends with white, and vise versa for the even rank numbers

a is an odd rank since it's the first letter and the first rank, a1 is black
b is even b1 is white. 

So a1 is black, what about h1? well a8 is white, and h is the 8th ranks, its number 8, got to be white. Want to count from h to a? lets do it, 

h1 is white, and so is is g8, g1 is black and h8 is black of course, i want you to imagine it, not just to read it, forget about the letters, just imagine that you're counting from 1 to 8, each number has a color, and when you get to 8, you start again, 1 has the same color as 8.

one last rank is the d rank, it's number 4, a1 is black, a4 is white, d is rank number 4, which is white! that's what i do, a list, white, black doesn't matter, might help you with blindfolded chess or if you're playing against an engine, no GUI.