BOARDWITHIN LEARNING GUIDES

Blindfold Chess for Beginners: Learn to Track the Board

Start with two moves, not an entire game.

Published by BoardWithin · September 25, 2026

Blindfold chess is played without seeing the pieces. Players keep the position in memory and communicate moves, often through notation or spoken coordinates. For a beginner, the first useful goal is much smaller: follow a few moves and correctly describe what changed.

You do not need a physical blindfold. Covering a board, hiding the pieces in an app, or looking away between moves is enough for these exercises.

Start with coordinates and legal moves

Before hiding the pieces, get comfortable finding squares and knowing how each piece moves. From White’s side, a1 is the near-left corner and h8 the far-right. From Black’s side, the view changes but square names do not.

Try naming the squares along the a-file and then the diagonal from a1 to h8. If this is difficult, spend a little time with our square visualization exercise first. Keep a visible board nearby to check yourself.

Your first blindfold sequence

Begin from the standard starting position. Hide the pieces and follow 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6. Read one move at a time. The letter N means knight; a move without a piece letter, such as e4, is a pawn move.

1. After e4, picture White’s pawn leaving e2 and arriving on e4.
2. After e5, update Black’s pawn from e7 to e5.
3. After Nf3, move White’s g1 knight to f3 in your mental position.
4. After Nc6, move Black’s b8 knight to c6.

Pause. Where are both e-pawns? Which knight starting squares are empty? Reveal the board or play out the line to check.

Use a checkpoint after each move

Ask three questions: What moved? Where did it come from? What changed at its destination? On a capture, remove the captured piece from your mental position as well as moving the attacker.

Also track whose turn it is. Castling moves two pieces; en passant removes a pawn from a square other than the capturing pawn’s destination. Leave these special moves for later if ordinary moves still require all your attention.

Build up gradually

• One piece: follow a short route on an otherwise empty board.
• A few pieces: study a small legal position and recall every piece’s square.
• A short line: follow two to four moves from a known position.
• A game segment: play a few turns, then reveal and compare.
• A full game: attempt this when shorter segments are manageable.

These are practice stages, not a required schedule. Stay at a stage until you can explain the position reliably. A remembered wrong position makes the next move harder, so reveal and correct it when needed.

What to do when you lose the position

Stop adding moves. Return to the last position you could describe, check the board, and replay the first move that caused confusion. Was it a forgotten capture, a wrong starting square, or too many pieces to hold at once?

Try the same line again with one fewer move. Keep a short note of the mistake rather than judging the session only by whether you won. If the position itself is hard to remember, practice small-position recall before continuing the game.

Try it in BoardWithin

BoardWithin’s separate Blindfold Game mode hides the pieces and keeps move history visible. You can enter moves by voice, reveal the board, and resume an unfinished game. Foundation offers unlimited reveals; the practice opponent is unrated. The Blindfold Game guide explains the controls and difficulty settings.

Following a short line accurately is already a useful practice result. Full games can remain a later goal.