Kolty set a record for playing 34 blindfold games at once. No boards, no scoresheets, no hints. Just him, his memory, and 34 different games of Chess.

When they hear this, most Chess improvers think of Kolty cycling through 34 crystal clear images of positions in his mind, making his decision, and moving to the next one. But this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Thankfully for us, Kolty was a prolific writer of newspaper columns, totaling over 10,000 in his lifetime. In one of them, he discusses his blindfold records and what actually went on in his head while he achieved them.

In a 1960 column, he wrote:

“My mind is a gramophone record. When I want to know what moves have been made, I start the record in my mind. Then I listen.”

In his 1990 book, he clarified further:

“I do not see the board or pieces in my mind; I just remember the moves and ‘feel’ the position.”

You’re reading that correctly. Koltanowski set the blindfold simul world record twice with no pictures in his head. None at all. He used methods that felt natural to him and his mind instead.