Friday 9 May 2014

Hearing versus seeing

I may have touched on this topic before, but I'm still wondering about 'hearing' versus 'seeing' as an analysis technique. My recent thoughts on this are based on a comment that was made to me about teaching juniors chess notation as early as possible. The idea is that if you know chess notation then it is easier to calculate in your head, as you can simply think "Qc5+ Kh8 Nf7+ Kg8 Nh6+ Kh8 Qg8+ Rxg8 Nf7 mate". On the other hand being able to 'see' the board in your head means you can analyse deeper, as you don't have to refer to the position in front of you as your starting point.
I'm assuming we all do a bit of both, but I wonder if some players use one method over the other, and does this make them stronger?

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