A verbal conceptualization model does not need to mean you use no pictures at all. A lot of players I've spoken or worked with run into trouble here.

Because they see some semblance of a picture they do one of two things. Either they assume they are visual people and put more and more effort into trying to make that picture clear, or they assume their visual faculties are just not strong enough for Chess.

There are a lot of adult improvers out there, me included, who can see pictures kinda-sorta-sometimes, but it's not our primary mode.

Maybe there's an element of our model that presents itself to us visually. Or maybe there are specific situations when our mind conjures an image, but not other times.

All the evidence I can find points to Alexander Alekhine, of all people, having a mind that worked like this.

Alekhine wrote every now and then about what happened in his mind during the blindfold simuls that are such a part of his legend.

He referred regularly to what he called his "logical memory", a process by which he tracked the important details of each position, and reconstructed other details when he forgot them.

For example, if he couldn't remember where the b-pawn was on a particular board, he could check his logical memory and recall that earlier in the game he had to stop Nc4. Therefore, the pawn is on b3.

This method he's using is one I've seen many times, and is very close to the story-based methods I discussed in Part 3.

But Alekhine was not entirely verbal in his conceptualization.

When greeted with a particularly tricky calculation, he would "flash" an image of the relevant part of the board for a moment, just to make sure he wasn't missing anything. As far as I can tell, these quick flashes are as visual as Alekhine ever got.

In other words, his mental Chessboard was primarily verbal, with a little smattering of vision when he felt he required it.

My own verbal conceptualization model sits in a similar spot on the spectrum, but presents differently.

When I'm conceptualizing, I see a handful of pieces in my mind's eye. Generally just the ones directly connected to a theme or idea I'm thinking about in that moment.

There's no light or dark squares, or even squares at all. The pieces just sort of float there. Existing roughly as far apart from each other as they would be on a board, but with no precision.

My mental board has about as much visual definition as those dirt maps people draw in movies.

"The base is here (draws a circle in the dirt) and we're here (draws a triangle near the circle), and we'll come in from this direction (draws arrows from the triangle to the circle)."

The dirt map makes sense in context, but it would be useless by itself. It's nothing more than a set of markers to keep everyone on the same page as the characters discuss what's going to happen. That's how it works for me too.

The story is the important bit of my model. It's the part that tells me what's going on, what's important, and what I need to pay attention to. The visuals are just there as a kind of support.

But there is one situation where my mind can summon crystal clear imagery. Many verbal thinkers I've run into have the same thing, and it can be confusing if you don't know what's going on.

Your mental board, like mine, may manifest in different ways depending on your familiarity with a position.

Let's have a little experiment together to show you what I mean.

1) Take a second and think of the starting position on your mental board.

Focus only on thinking about the starting position and let your mind represent it however it wants.

Got it? Grab a pen and write down whatever happened in your head as best you can.

2) Now think of a position 4 moves into your favorite opening.

Let your brain represent it however it wants. And take a moment to write down what happened again.

(If you actually do this, the insight will resonate much better.)

3) Now try a position 4 moves into an opening you don't know very well and have never studied.

Maybe one you've seen in Chess videos or at your local club. Conjure to your mind what you think a position 4 moves into an unfamiliar opening is.

Write down whatever happens in your mind to represent that too.

4) Lastly, set up the following position on your mental board:

White: Kg5, Ra7
Black: Kg8, Nh8

And, surprise surprise, write down what happens there too.

For some of you, your brain represented all four positions the same way. That's fine if that's the case.

But for many of us, the way our brain represents the starting position looks and feels very different to the way our brain manifests that final position.

Maybe all four seemed different to you. Different levels of clarity. A different balance of visual to verbal.

When I think of the starting position, I do see a clear 64 squares in my mind, complete with colors and images of pieces. I've seen that position so many thousands of times that my mind can conjure it easily.

When I think of my favorite early position in the Dutch, I don't have quite the same sharpness to my mental image. My brain focuses a spotlight on the pieces involved in particular ideas at a time. Rotating through them.

When I think of a position I've seen but don't know, like the Nimzo-Indian, that visual sharpness is reduced drastically.

The radius of the spotlight is much tighter, and my internal monologue is filling in the gaps. I do kinda-sorta know the position, and have probably seen it dozens of times in master games and tournament recap videos, but my brain's working hard to understand what's going on.

And lastly when I conjure the position from the notation, the visuals are all but gone. I'm left with my dirt map, and my normal verbal and logical stories.

That last one is the one I call my conceptualization model.

It's what my brain does when it doesn't have long-term memory and pattern recognition giving it a major alley-oop.

Even though I can see the starting position vividly, it does not mean I should expect to see other positions the same way.

My brain just happens to conjure photo-like imagery when I'm very familiar with a position, and dirt-map style imagery when I'm not. It's the words in my model that matter most.

I'm laying this all out for you because it can be confusing to experience.

Being a verbal thinker does not necessarily mean there's no pictures at all. And having some pictures does not necessarily mean you're a visual thinker. It's far more nuanced than that.

The only thing that matters is your understanding of what's happening in a position. That's all.

Any method your brain uses to do that — even if it changes depending on the situation — is valid.

It's tempting to put it in a box, give it a label, and try to make it work the same way all the time. But our brains don't work like that.

Life would be much less interesting if they did.

Here's to the journey,
Aiden