Considering a move

I've typed a very big message, but decided against posting. Sarg0n, all I have to say to you is that I disagree, I think you're being shortminded and I'd rather take advice conserning chess from a very strong GM as opposed to a CM. Cheers

Currently I'm reading "Thinking inside the box" by Jacob Aagaard, which is an amazing book. Just a few days ago I read something he wrote about candidate moves. Pretty interesting stuff, so I figured I'd share a few of his comments:
"...the technique of candidate moves being the act of actively looking for moves or ideas you do not see automatically."
"...how you can expand the number of candidates you see by slowing down and actually looking at the position, rather than following your runaway intuition down the rabbit's hole."

In case you're interested in this stuff, you should definitely order this (brand-new) book. He also refers to "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (2011) by Daniel Kahneman, which is a psychology book about thinking.

My experience so far is that it can be quite a semantic discussion at times. But I do have to agree with Beep when it comes to this discussion.

Just my 2 cents.

Interesting discussion for us, lower rated players who are trying to progress.
Btw I 100% agree #21 :-) : @Sarg0n constantly run down Kotov's way of thinking every time a post is directly or indirectly in relation with this subject.
Moreover, he is regularly condescending with lower player due to his title, and it's funny to see him getting reframed :-).

I would like to ask a question in addition to the OP :
I read a bit of Kotov's book, and get some of my game analyzed by stronger players and I understood I had 2 problems :

1) First one can be solved easily : miscalculations.
In order to fix that, I think Kotov's exercice are good for me and trying to resolve puzzle more conscientiously will help a lot.

2) the second one is : sometimes I don't even consider the "good" move because I didn't understood the position as well as the guy who is explaining me.
So getting the candidate moves then trying to calculate every options seems a pretty clever idea : but how to be sure that I didn't missed any candidates moves ?
Or what is the to-do list before trying to find the candidates moves ?

(Sry for my bad English)

I have to say that I found the method of just calculating lines in my head rather unhelpful at times. In the end, almost every position is about calculating 2 to 4 moves deep (no further) and evaluating the resulting position correctly. The evaluation part is the tricky part. Most of the errors you make occur at the first or second move of your calculations/ideas in critical positions. This should give you some incentive to calculate slower, as pointed out by TricksOnly.

If Kotov was right, masters wouldn't be able to blitz as well as they do.

#21 & #23, don't get personal! Mentioning my title and comparing and so on has nothing to do with the topic.

I refer to Rowson, Watson and Hendriks and try explain their approach without using personal stuff towards other users. You can disagree but I wouldn't bring my or your personal playing strength into play. I just read my #20 and underlined it.

PS ontopic: of course you start with some "candidates" and calculate them - but then you have to reconsider and recalculate them and check if there are new candidates which have to be observed as well. No big deal and nothing outrageous, isn't it?

@Sarg0n Ofc :D

"I would like to know what a strong player ponders before making a move?"

This is the original question, so it seems pretty clear that the question is for STRONG player.

So, obviously, comparing and mentioning title is pretty logical : if a 800 Elo classical player come here and say "hey guys, this is how strong player are thinking", I'm not sure you would really listen what he has to say ^^.

In the same way, I think it's pretty logical for me to pay attention to any Candidate Master advices and even more to International Master advices :D

Btw, maybe you should too ... ^^

Ok, I explained what GM Rowson said in his books. Even so IM Hendriks and GM Nunn kicked Kotov 20 years ago. And all the books are very well accepted. Relata refero. I gave as the only one a practical example which showed that Kotov's rigid thinking way fails. How do you solve the diagram? Someone else who read the mentioned books?

I rest my case.

I am disagreeing with you, @Sarg0n, not getting personal. You give 'advice' in #20 and I'm merely saying I'd rather listen to a good GM and a good teacher.

In any case, this topic is getting derailed. I like @TricksOnlyNL's inclusion of Aagaards' new book, very interested in it and might buy. Sargon, you might want to react to that post and respond to its' content.

edit; lol, yeah rest your case ;)

#1 : Search for a sequence a moves where you are able to evaluate the value !