moving on from opening to middlegame

hi everyone,

i noticed that many chess players including me, after the few opening moves, get confused about how to proceed and how to make a plan to get to the opponent king,especially when the game is closed.

can anyone please help, thank you.

Look at master games or take lessons with a coach.

i've always been viewing master games but im not convinced with their moves(i mean they change from game to game and i can't guess their convictions)

"Getting to the opponent king" already is a plan that applies only in about 30% of the games.

Read the master games, but above all, read the annotations.

do you know where to find annotated games? thanks alot(merci beaucoup)

In game collections.

For example, Reti's Masters of the Chessboard. There are many others...

i did a google search and here is the first result: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1004174

it contains games but not the reason behind moves.

This is a database website. The book written by Reti contains annotation. This link is just the collection of the games that are in the book.

For a book giving the plans, I can also recommend Euwe's Master vs Amateur (and the sequence The amateur becomes a master, but there is a serious rating gap between the two).

There are a handful of common pawn structure types. Each pawn strucuture has a limited number of workable/feasible plans associated with them. Once you understand what the plan(s) are, you have to choose one (assuming you have the option to), and then move your pieces/pawns accordingly. This is one big reason why masters already know where to move certain pieces to in many openings...they understand the properties of the pawn structure well enough to know that a particular piece coordinates optimally with the pawns on this or that square.

Being able to calculate concretely is also important because at some point, you will be 'out of book' and have to think for yourself. But you do need to understand the plans associated with the opening systems you're using in order to really do this effectively.

Both of these things can be improved upon by reading annotated chess books, of which (these days) there's no shortage of.

thanks, though what you said seems theoritically theoritical.