Author: Omid David Tabibi
Date: 15:38:14 06/07/03
Go up one level in this thread
On June 07, 2003 at 18:17:23, Russell Reagan wrote: >On June 07, 2003 at 14:46:17, Alan Grotier wrote: > >> I have tried playing on the 3-D boards in F8 but still prefer the flat 2-D. >> >> I while ago I dragged-out my Miphisto Vancouver 12hz and for a while had a >> hard time playing on a real board.Question of perspectives.Nothing to do >> to do with the great program that has always thrashed me. > >I had the same problem. I played most of my games online for a long time, and my >OTB play suffered. Online the basic tactics came easily, as well as most simple >combinations, and I did pretty well online. OTB, I was horrible. I felt very >uneasy. I felt like I couldn't "see" the board very well. I hung pieces >frequently and lost to 600-900 players :( A few things that I recommend to get >your OTB vision back are: > >1. Play OTB chess (obviously) > >2. Setup tactical problems on a board and try to solve them. Take your time, >because a main goal of yours is to get your "chess vision" back for OTB play, so >spending time focused in that mindset will help you feel better about what you >can see easily OTB. I particularly found doing mate in 3 problems on a board, >from Polgar's "big book", to be very helpful (I guess since it was almost all >calculation). > >3. Try playing over games blindfold. It isn't as hard as it might sound. In >fact, it's not hard at all. Anyone can do it. The hard part is having the >patience to carry it out. It can take a long time to play over a single game in >your head at first. I was able to do it on my first try, but it took me over an >hour, and it was pretty boring, but it helped a lot. One book I highly recommend >if you find this interesting is The Inner Game of Chess by Soltis. He discusses >how to calculate, and teaches you how to be able to play over games blindfold. > Playing blindfold is not hard at all. You just have to "live" in the 64 squares :) For example, you have to intuitively know that a bishop on b3 attacks g8, and not start finding out the path (assuming that you don't have an empty board to cheat!). Once I played a simultaneous blindfold against 8 (weak) players. Needless to say that after finishing the games I slept for 16 hours and had a severe headache for the rest of week... (I never repeated that insane experience) From http://www.sigschess.com/news_32103.html : "Russians, however, were not always so eager to let their chess greats play blindfold. It's commonly reported that Soviet chess authorities banned blindfold chess because of possible health dangers. "The belief had some precedent. Some early blindfold greats following Philidor suffered from insanity. "American chess legend Paul Morphy, who dazzled 19th century Parisian crowds with blindfold exhibitions against the strongest French players, went insane and died at age 47 in New Orleans in 1884. "Another American blindfold wizard, Harry Pillsbury, went insane, and many blamed it on his excessive blindfold play." >4. Play chess at very long time controls, even against your computer. I played >some games against the computer at long time controls. Maybe the computer gets 5 >seconds to move, and I get all weekend :) The basic idea is to take all the time >you need and try to work out all of the tactics and make the best move. I would >setup the game on a board in the kitchen, and I would think about my move in >there, then I would play my move, walk into the office and play my move on the >computer, get its response, and go back to thinking about my move at the board. >This is one way that is low pressure. You don't have to worry if you miss >something important, because the game doens't matter, just start another one. It >is also nice because you can do it whenever you'd like, and you don't have to >bother another human to play. You can take a month for your move, and the >computer doesn't care. > >There might be better ways, but when I had your problem, I tried these things >and it helped me. I still prefer playing online, on a 2D board...with automatic >clocks and move recording :)
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