Board Vision trainer

How to use the trainer

Pick one of four drills. Find the square shows you a name like g7 and you tap it. Name the square lights up a square and you say what it is called. Move the piece gives you an order like "Knight to f5" and you make the move with no target shown. Light or dark? hides the board completely, so you have to picture the square in your head.

Choose a 30 second, 60 second or 2 minute sprint to chase a high score, or practice without a clock and build a streak. Your best score for every drill and setting is saved on this device.

Make it harder

Once a drill feels easy, turn off the coordinates on the edge of the board. Then switch to playing from Black's side, where everything is upside down. The random option flips the board every round, which is the toughest test of all.

Why board vision matters

Every chess book, video and game record uses square names. If you have to count along the edge to find e6, you lose time and focus that should go into the position. Players who know the board by heart read notation faster, calculate further ahead and are much better at blindfold and visualization exercises.

After each run you get a heatmap of the squares you missed. Most people have a few blind spots, often the squares near the middle of the h-file or anything seen from Black's side. Tap "Practice my weak squares" and the trainer will drill exactly those until they stick.