Is Blindfold Mode TOO EASY? New Free Chrome Extension Makes It Harder

Those of us lucky enough to have played blindfold chess OTB know how fun it can be. However, it can be difficult to convince your friends to play you as you sit there for 30 minutes trying to rewind the game to remember where that knight went.

Lichess Blindfold mode is a great alternative - allowing players to challenge friends afar and even play against randoms in the rated pool (often on a designated Blindfold account.) You can activate it via the hamburger icon (the three lines) on the right side of the board while in a game, which reveals the Blindfold toggle.

Blindfold Mode hides all of the pieces on the board, which means you will have to remember the location of every piece as the game goes on.

So What's The Difference?

Remembering where the pieces are currently is unnecessary in a normal game of chess. The difficulty lies in envisioning what the board could look like, what opportunities could arise, and evaluating those potential future positions before they even occur. When Masters speak of visualization, they are referring to those very skills.

And even an empty board should help most of us immensely in picturing what a future position could look like!

For example, if there is a knight on e6 (an odd square for a knight,) where can it immediately jump to? Given an empty board, we can find the e6 square (possibly via counting) - and the knight's potential destinations immediately become obvious for many seasoned players: the familiar octagon surrounding the square immediately lights up in our minds. But even for less experienced knight brigadiers, it simply becomes a matter of method: the knight's moves can be traced with our eyes, a finger, a cursor, a digital arrow.

On the other hand, in an OTB blindfold game we need to visualize the entire area, or those of us that cannot do so reliably (often myself included) we must list out all of its moves logically: d8, f8, c7, g7, c5, g5, d4, f4, and attempt to do the same in all of the resulting positions. It can take an incredible amount of concentration - and that's just one knight!

Lichess True Blindfold (Free Chrome Extension)

Therefore, for the newly-converted blindfold purists, I reveal: Lichess True Blindfold!

This extension removes all of the assistance you would not be entitled to in OTB blindfold play. No longer is there a canvas to imagine the position (the empty board,) a move list to scour when you lose your footing, nor even the move number.

Despite the name of the extension and the flowery language, the extension's purpose is more than elitism. I have used a personal version of this same extension for quite some time, and have always noticed significant visualization improvement and elo spikes after I play chess blindfolded. In fact, I would argue that playing in this way is likely the most effective form of training via blindfolded chess - the immediate review and visual summary of the game afterwards can be vital in retaining ideas and amending misunderstandings.

I know that everyone will have different learning processes and experiences, so feel free to drop a comment or send me a message if you want something added later. I intend to add some toggles on what exactly is hidden so that everyone can customize their blindfold experience.

Enjoy!

You can find the Chrome extension here.