I will point out that the sample exercises from the first book should be quite helpful for anyone calculationally challenged (including myself).

I'm not sure you benefit anything from trying to learn blindfold.

See following reasearch:
Training in chess: A scientific approach (http://www.saladehistoria.com/fotobl...g_in_chess.pdf)
We believe that playing blindfold chess is at best useless, and at worst harmful to one’s development. The ability of playing blindfold comes more as a side effect of having acquired a well organized and easily accessible knowledge base (Ericsson & Staszewski, 1989; Saariluoma, 1995). Practicing blindfold as such may be harmful when it interferes with other types of training.

There did not seem to be any original research to back the conclusions that the authors made in that paper. Food for thought.

Crash, you said---"There did not seem to be any original research to back the conclusions that the authors made in that paper. Food for thought."

You're working us right?? The book Gobet wrote--- Education and Chess (2006) is a selection of essays from the Koltanowski conference (pp 124-143) Dallas, TX: Chess Program at the University of Texas at Dallas.

why not read the article again and state which papers were unoriginal!

You give me the impression that you favor wasting time on blindfold chess when these 1400-1700s should be learning the fundamentals. You're not a chess teacher are you---not that I have anything against teachers---but, in these hard economic times, I can see teachers saying---Yeah, come on in---you need to learn some blindfold chess. We'll get you up to 1450 before you can say Jack Squat. Yeah, thats right 35 dollars an hour.

here are a few of Gobet's credentials:

Appointments held:

2003-present Professor of Psychology. Department of Human Sciences. Brunel University.

2000-2003 Allan Standen Reader in Intelligent Systems. School of Psychology, University of Nottingham.

1996-2000. (Senior) Research Fellow / Lecturer. Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham.

1990-95. Visiting Researcher, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA.

Personal home page:
people.brunel.ac.uk/~hsstffg/home.html

Recent Publications

Books

* Gobet, F., de Voogt, A., & Retschitzki, J. (2004). Moves in mind. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Refereed Journal Articles

*
Campitelli, G., & Gobet, F. (in press). The role of practice in chess: A longitudinal study. Learning and Individual Differences. Preprint
*
Waters, A. J., & Gobet, F. (in press). Mental imagery and chunks: Empirical and computational findings. Memory & Cognition.

* Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (in press). Inflexibility of experts – Reality or myth? Quantifying the Einstellung effect in chess masters. Cognitive Psychology. Preprint

* Campitelli, G., Gobet, F., Head, K., Buckley, M., & Parker, A. (in press). Brain localisation of memory chunks in chessplayers. International Journal of Neuroscience. Preprint

* Campitelli, G., Parker, A., Head, K., & Gobet, F. (in press). Left Lateralization in autobiographical memory: An fMRI study using the expert archival paradigm. International Journal of Neuroscience. Preprint

* Campitelli, G., Gobet, F., Williams, G., & Parker, A. (in press). Integration of perceptual input and visual imagery in chess players: Evidence from eye movements. Swiss Journal of Psychology. Preprint

* Didierjean, A. & Gobet, F. (in press). Sherlock Holmes – An expert’s view of expertise. British Journal of Psychology. Preprint

* Frias-Martinez , E., & Gobet, F. (in press). Automatic generation of cognitive theories using genetic programming. Minds & Machines. pdf

* Gobet. F. & Chassy, P. (in press). Season of birth and chess expertise. Journal of Biosocial Science. Preprint

* Gobet. F. & Chassy, P. (in press). Towards an alternative to Benner’s theory of expert intuition in nursing: A discussion paper. International Journal of Nursing Studies. Preprint

* Jones, G., Gobet, F., & Pine, J. M. (in press). Linking working memory and long-term memory: A computational model of the learning of new words. Developmental Science. Preprint

* Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (2007). Does chess need intelligence? A study with young chess players. Intelligence, 35, 457-470. Preprint

* Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (2007). Personality profiles of young chess players. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 901-910. Preprint

* Freudenthal, D., Pine, J. M., & Gobet, F. (2007). Understanding the developmental dynamics of subject omission: The role of processing limitations in learning. Journal of Child Language, 34, 83-110. Preprint

* Freudenthal, D., Pine, J. M., Javier Aguado-Orea, & Gobet, F. (2007). Modelling the developmental patterning of finiteness marking in English, Dutch, German and Spanish using MOSAIC, Cognitive Science, 31, 311-341. Preprint

* Gobet. F. & Campitelli, G. (2007). The role of domain-specific practice, handedness, and starting age in chess. Developmental Psychology, 43, 159-172. Preprint

* Gobet. F. & Musch, J. (2007). Ein Vater der kognitiven Psychologie: Adriaan Dingeman de Groot (1914–2006). Psychologische Rundschau, 58, 205-206.

Papers in Conference Proceedings

* Freudenthal, D., Pine, J.M. & Gobet, F. (2007). Meter based omission of function words in MOSAIC. In R. L. Lewis, T. A. Polk, and J. E. Laird (eds.). Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Cognitive Modelling (pp. 219-224). Hove, UK: Psychology press. pdf

* Freudenthal, D., Pine, J. M. & Gobet, F. (2007). Simulating the noun-verb asymmetry in the productivity of children’s speech. In R. L. Lewis, T. A. Polk, and J. E. Laird (eds.). Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Cognitive Modelling (pp. 109-114). Hove, UK: Psychology press. pdf

* Gobet, F., Pine, J. M., & Freudenthal, D. (2007). Towards a unified model of language acquisition. Proceedings of the European Cognitive Science Conference 2007. pdf

* Lane, P. C. R., & Gobet, F. (2007). Developing and evaluating cognitive architectures with behavioural tests. AAAI workshop on Evaluating Architectures for Intelligence. pdf

* Smith, Ll., Gobet, F., & Lane, P. C. R. (2007). An investigation into the effect of ageing on expert memory with CHREST. Proceedings of the United Kingdom Workshop On Computational Intelligence— UKCI07. pdf

Book chapters

* Gobet, F. & Lane, P. (2007). How do order effects arise in a cognitive model? In T. O'Shea, E. Lehtinen, F. E. Ritter & P. Langley (Eds.), Order effects in learning. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

* Dougan, P., Gobet, F., & King, M. (2006). Modelling systematic communication differences between Law and Science. In M. Freeman, Current Legal Issues - Law and Psychology (pp. 105-124). Oxford University Press.

* Gobet, F., & Charness, N. (2006). Chess and games. Cambridge handbook on expertise and expert performance (pp. 523-538). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

· Gobet, F., & Campitelli, G. (2006). Education and chess: A critical review. In T. Redman, Chess and education: Selected essays from the Koltanowski conference (pp. 124-143). Dallas, TX: Chess Program at the University of Texas at Dallas.

* Gobet, F. & Jansen, P. J. (2006). Training in chess: A scientific approach. In T. Redman, Chess and education: Selected essays from the Koltanowski conference (pp. 81-97). Dallas, TX: Chess Program at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Additional articles on learning Blindfold chess:
Master the Art of Visualization
Chess Eye - Chess Visualisation Training
2009 Articles:
The Hearst book has been reprinted.
ChessBase.com - Chess News - Blindfold Chess – history, psychology, champions, records
In the U.S. the book has hefty price $52.
About the book:
Blindfold Chess - Products - New In Chess
The new reprint McFarland 2008
Used copies of the original book are selling for $75.
What is Blindfold Chess:
Blindfold Chess - Products - New In Chess
"How to play blindfold chess?
The easiest way is to learn to play blindfold chess is to get software which supports this option of play. Most modern chess programs such as Chessmaster, Fritz or Rybka allow you to play “vision free” chess. If you are a beginner in BF chess (I’m assuming you are since you’re reading this article) you should first set the engine strength to extremely weak: maybe even 400 elo. The idea of initial BF games is not to beat the opponent, but to be able to follow 40 move long games in your head. It sounds hard before you try it, but with a little practice it should come to you. During a BF game on a computer try at first after each move to point a computer mouse on an empty square of a chessboard and say out loud the names of pieces located on that square. Do it for your own and your opponents pieces. You tell me it takes too much time? Yes. But after a while you will be able to skip this part and just play BF like normal chess."

From a review of other websites Ask.com, Yahoo.com (question feature) and others it appears ANYONE can learn to play blindfold.
It is not hard.

Blindfold Chess | How to Play Blindfold Chess

The Chess Memory

The following appears to be a chess Video training website:
Blindfold Chess Quiz

Bobby Fischer and Blindfold Chess
(From Andrew Hearst) - the son of Eliot Hearst.
Panopticist: Bobby Fischer and Blindfold Chess

How to Play Blindfold Chess | eHow.com

A YOUTUBE demonstration
YouTube - Blindfold Chess Simultaneous Event - No: 44
The World's Best Blindfold Chess performer FM Darko N. Dimitrijevic

Reason and Rhyme: Mnemonics and Blindfold Chess

Malbase, you keep managing to surprise me. Your latest statement is a case in point.

"it appears ANYONE can learn to play blindfold.
It is not hard."

Look at the very best chessplayers alive today. Most of them play in the Amber blind chess tournaments. And in every tournament several mistakes are made.
What! these are the greatest players alive and they have an empty chess board in front of them and they still make mistakes. I dont get it it---Malbase said "It is not hard".

"...it appears ANYONE can learn to play blindfold.
It is not hard."

"It is not hard" to learn, not "It is hard" to master and play perfectly.

I did not say that their papers were unoriginal. I said that they made several conclusions which were not backed by any original research. To wit:

"Practicing blindfold as such may be harmful when it interferes with other types of training."

"We believe that playing blindfold chess is at best useless, and at worst harmful to one’s development."

They state a belief without citing research to back that belief. A number of grandmasters have stated a belief that blindfold chess is beneficial.

Further the entire paper is based on their beliefs of what the optimal training method is for an 1800 player. It is quite conceivable that what is optimal for an 1800 player is not optimal for a 2100 player.

The paper was from 2005 and the most recent reference was from 1996. Either the paper relies on some relatively old references or it was written forteen years ago.

I can't see how blindfold chess can be harmful since it should help improve visualization of the position which we all do when analyzing during a game.

Further, I disagree with their unsupported contention that teaching chess hurts your game.

Vlad Drkulec

Crash, you said---"I did not say that their papers were unoriginal. I said that they made several conclusions which were not backed by any original research."

Pal, your talking semantics---I dont play semantics.

Are you familiar with Eliot Hearst book---"Blindfold Chess"? It won the uscf's book of the year award in 2009. I dont know how long it took Hearst to write his book but he said it was something like 40 years to do it. A lot of study and a lot of research went into this book.

At chesscafe.com you will find an interview of Hearst. He was asked who are some of the leading chess researchers that he relied upon. The first name he mentions is Fernand Gobet, the very guy you are criticising for publishing "conclusions which were not backed by any original research".

Go talk with Eliot Hearst! I'm sure he would be glad to hear from you.

granturismo4ad---You said "It is not hard" to learn, not "It is hard" to master and play perfectly".


Tell us granturismo, when was the last time you played a blindfold game? Send us the game and let us have a look!