Does it change anything to play blindfold chess for a "good" chess player? It's been a long time since I wanted to ask this question to a professional player but as I don't know any, I thought maybe this was the right place to ask: Does it change anything to play blindfold chess for a &quot;good&quot; chess player ? How much is the level of play impacted when you play like this? Also I would like to learn to play blindfold, is there any good way to improve this ?
Thank you very much.
GM Alexandra Kosteniuk on a stream today mentioned how her father would encourage her to solve studies and puzzles by visualising the solutions and then say, setting it up on a board and then solving it blindfolded.
So if you're already at a stage where you can look at a puzzle on a screen and work out the solution without moving any pieces, the next step is to solve puzzles taking a glance at the board and then doing it blind.
This will help you in learning to retain the board in your mind, and having a guide like knowing it is a mate in 3 for example, will be a crutch so you can build up performing more complex calculations.
After you have managed this blindfold problem solving, you can then try playing blindfold chess. There are programs that help to train for this - off the top of my head, I know Lucas Chess offers a feature like this.
Even if you never play a blindfolded game against a real opponent, practicing it the right way can help your visualization and memory, thus helping your overall performance in any game.