I am a photoreader and an international rated Chess player with an elo of 2400+. Did photoreading improve my chess game? That I am not sure of, but as in I could not prove it scientificaly but I personally believe it did! Well, I had a good general knowlege of the openings, the italian, the spanish (Ruy Lopez), Pretrov's deffence (Russian game), Scandinavian deffence, Sicilian deffence ect. After I photo read several chess opening books (some 500 - 1000 pages in length) I had absolutly no results. I tried to access the information I was sure my brain had seen but it did not come to me. Well I totally forgot about it when one day, ( Nearly 3 months later) I started to play a game against a good friend of mine who happends to be a FIDE Chess master and I actually won! Well afterwards we anylized the game and he told me that all my opening moves were theoretical and by the book! I was shocked because my style of play is usually unorthodox by move 15! Here is the intersting part! I played a sicilian varation by book down to move 35. I went home and checked to see if that same varation was in any of my books. It turns out that it was one of the famous games annotated in my book by Eric Schiller!
I believe photoreading can help increase your understanding of what you already know but it wont give you certain skills I think you are looking for. You must master the basic skills on your own. PR a book on how to play better chess will not help you unless it is completely in text and it is something you could understand conscioucly.
So now to your question: Photoreading can help you but it really depends on what you would like to use it for.
If you have any questions about photorading or chess in general feel free to email me @ Shajjika@yahoo.com. yes that is two "js" no typo. Shajjika@yahoo.com or you can just post on the forum.
GL
- Fritz
