This might be a weird question, but has anyone on here consciously tried or been taught to structure their thought process in a particular way when playing chess, either as a beginner or at a later stage? And if so, did you find it useful? Are there any well-established models of how the chess thought process ought to work?
I basically learnt to play chess by reading a random assortment of books, and none of them ever discussed this stuff so although I seem to have ended up able to make fairly sensible moves a lot of the time, I don't think I could describe where the thought process has come from. Now that I'm looking at online material, I'm coming across a lot more ideas on that subject - "checks, threats and captures", positional evaluation, imbalances, candidate moves and variations etc - and wondering whether there'd be any benefit in consciously trying to tidy up my thought process rather than just continuing to try to learn by repeatedly doing things wrong until I just magically start to do them better.
Any thoughts?
"Check, threat, captures- etc" are important for beginners, but when you become experienced players, you should be able avoid those within seconds. ( e.g, you want to move a bishop from here to there, if you keep checking every single position whether it is blunder, then you are wasting your time).
The most important feature advanced players do is
1. Candidate move/ positional evaluation ( extremely critical in bullet but also an important part in long time control)
2. Tactics, how to process your candidate move, search deeper, how much branches you need to search and how deep, when to stop. This requires themes, experience and positional evaluation ( e.g in this position, I must break centre asap etc). With positional evaluation ,skip searching unnecessary moves. e.g For 5 moves depth search, 2^5=32 position vs 5^5= 3125 positions
As majority of games are played in time control, the best thought process should be " searching important moves with the least minimal effort".
The thought process should be structured in 3 parts.
During opponent's turn: no calculation of variations, only long term strategic thoughts: which pawn moves and which trades to strive for, which to avoid, how would the endgame be, what would be the best squares for your pieces and for your opponent's pieces?
During your turn: calculation: what are the candidate moves? What happens after candidate move 1? Evaluation? What happens after candidate move 2, evaluation?... What then is the best move?
During your turn before playng the move: blunder check
I read Silman's Reassess your Chess (4th edition)
He says to first evaluate the position and find out the imbalances. And then based on the imbalances create a plan.
PRO tip: Before making a move you should make sure you don't blunder anything.
Read Move First Think Later and you will learn that we all think in a seemingly unstructured way. Why not? You have to get experienced, either way. Forget those lists.
@Sarg0n Never heard of that book. What's it about?
There was one pioneer who was "building" an algorythm in his head... he wanted to do that in 30 days... he challenged World CHampion to prove everybody wrong... he tried to surprise Magnus with his unorthodox and out of any patterns thought process... maybe he didn't win that game, but Magnus couldn't win smoothly either
@TrainingOTB www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNF0LkIodXwYou probably meant this guy, right? Yeah he basically tried to think like an engine....
Deutsch talks about his algorithm and compares it to an AB engine's evaluations here:
medium.com/@maxdeutsch/m2m-day-378-it-works-1750d4da6438The game as played goes exactly like you would think; an amateur makes tactical mistakes that Carlsen sees in an instant.
Deutsch points out in his video that his algorithm, if he had done the calculations (matrix calculations!) correctly, would have avoided the tactical mistakes.
Ok, but where do the candidate moves come from? And this speaks to #1. All those rules-of-thumb (ROT) that one learns have exceptions. So you internalize as much of those ROTs and exceptions as you can and then you don't think in terms of those or lists anymore. Your subconscious gives you the candidates and then you calculate; if you have the time.
@Sarg0n I think those list have a place. Not for you sure. You have built intuiton needed to danger. lesser players need to check things you see.
One thing about how to think books: THey all tell why Kotov was wrong
In addition the mentioned books at least Soltis has written about those in books like
The Inner Game of Chess: How to Calculate and Win
How to Choose a Chess Move
Studying Chess Made Easy
Heisman has written a lot also made abundance of videos of it. Chess cafe at least had articles by him.
None of the above made me any better. Basically you play asa well as your worst move. Hence any thinking process is worthless is drop for just one move per game.
