This article is for people who have difficulty visualising a game of chess with their eyes shut
but who would like to play chess blindfolded. It is not aimed at people who
really can do this
naturally.
We know from the course that the average person can memorise a sequence of items by associating each item with a pre-prepared list of images.
We know that we can use memorable images to represent objects which are less memorable in nature; by doing this, we can make information easier to memorise:
the image that stands in for it is more memorable than the original image.
Eg. I would find it hard to memorise that a nondescript white pawn is sitting on a nondescript black square; but if the square is represented by a vivid substitute image and the playing piece
is represented by a vivid substitute image then an imaginary scene can take
place involving the two of them; that would be a very memorable scene to recall.
W1 is my code word for the far left white pawn on a chess board when the game begins for the first player.
Within my libraries of memory images which I can apply to any memory task,
I have a library which gives me a standard image to represent the code W1.
So I can borrow that image to represent the left-most white pawn.
Another library has an image to describe every letter pair of the English alphabet.
Square A3 on a chess board might be represented as AC [where C is the 3rd letter in the alphabet];
then my AC image ('an Ace of Spades card') could be used to represent the square A3.
Note: What I just described is typical of the tackling of a memory challenge: examining my existing body of memory tools to see if they can be applied to a novel challenge; and considering if there is a benefit to creating a whole new library of images special to a particular problem.
Besides all of that, I have a long sequence of images which I already know how to recall in a special sequence;
I can associate the W1 piece and the AC square in a story involving the first image in my sequence;
that is like saying that the first move in the sequence of player moves begins with the left-most white pawn travelling to square A3.
That could work as a system for recalling the moves of a game.
However, I would use a different system to recall where all of the pieces are on the board
at the current stage of a game. Each piece would be given its own reserved sequence of images.
Each move that a particular piece makes is recorded at the appropriate image in its sequence:
a story is imagined which involves the sequence image and the image which represents the square that the piece has moved to. The following may make this idea clearer:
The leftmost white pawn may have a pre-prepared sequence of 7 images [maybe less].
At the first of those images, you would store its first move by imagining the image of its destination square there: not the square itself but an object that will always be a substitute to mean that destination square (such as an Ace playing card).
The most recent story in a sequence represents the most recent move made by the particular piece.
If castling happens, then more than one story needs to be stored:
the castle and the king both move.
If a pawn becomes a queen then a whole new sequence might be begun for the newly
created piece.
If a pawn is captured then an image which represents 'capture' would need to be stored at its next image along its sequence.
This whole process acts as a backup reminder of where pieces are on the board.
It can even help to answer, "Is there a piece currently at position A3?" because
you may recall a recent story which involved the A3 'Ace' image; it occurred in the white pawn's sequence of images.
Other chess
mnemonics: Opening Moves
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