I can't imagine any serious who'd have enough interest in the game after trying this method.

Does your method work? 

I'm sure it CAN work for that extremely rare person willing to put in this sort of tedious work and operate like a machine.  From a practical perspective, how can you possibly make this method of learning less boring?   Because I'd bet my bottom dollar that the average SERIOUS beginner gets burnt out VERY quickly and loses his interest in Chess (yes, even correspondence Chess) by using this method.

I think you'll find that the average person, serious as he may be about becoming competent at a new endeavor, will NOT be receptive to this learning approach...because it's too tedious and time-consuming. 

I believe you'll also find that your method will also be more effective for someone who ALREADY has a good working knowledge of Chess principles and tactics-- not for a beginner.

Catalyst_kh I happen to have the book I think your talking about. In English the book is called How to think like a grandmaster. A better book for intermediate players is How to choose a chess move by Andrew Soltis which mentions Kotov's method. Neither of these books on calculation are of use to a beginner however. They should get a general book on openings and a book on the middle game, endgame and tactics. If they are a complete beginner of course a more general chess book on the rules etc would be best. The books I would suggest they get are Winning Chess Openings by Seirawan and Winning Chess Tactics. Also How to Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman and the Amateur's Mind. For endgames you can't go wrong with Silman's Complete Endgame Course. I can't however endorse dsarkars idea since like people have already said here its more likely to put them off chess.

cool this will help a lot

I guess it's better to study principles of chess first. Without knowing them it makes absolutely no sense to go over myriads of emerging positions which you don't know how to evaluate. Example 1. e4 e5 2.Qh5 - many beginners think that they're doing just great, although the opening is dubious.

To beginners, like me, look at all possible moves by the opponent, think why did this person move here... there must be a reason for this.  Think and respond, develop your pieces and respond to a missed assault.

Works for me, but I'm only a strong beginner.  It's up to you if you think that's valid or not.

 Just had to correct your math a little.  If there are 20 first moves and 20 which can be responded to you actually have 20! (20 x19x18x17 etc)

 So then basically you are writing down what every player(even beginner) already does.  Look at what I can do and then what my opponent can respond.  I don't think that is anything revolutionary or that will improve people all that much(I am not a beginner so it would not be inappropriate for me to try it anyway).  Could you improve that way.  Sure, but no more(and probably less) than learning some tactical patterns such as pins, forks, skewers, removal of the guard etc and positional ideas such as weak squares open files etc. 

I will take something from the fitness world.

Everything works and nothing works forever. 

Totall possible games without any deletion of moves = 10^123 moves. Took me forever to write the tree. LOL.

I just have one question... Why?  Is this just a mental exercise?  Or is there some real benefit to understanding the game of chess...  I would like to think that there are more effective alternatives to what seems like a Pavlov's dogs approach to chess.  Just my thought.

There are quite a few exceptions, such as new talents. I've been playing seriously for all of one year, starting with learning the rules, and can detect traps and see winning combinations. I think a more realistic timeframe there is several months, not Several Years.

I do, however, believe that this is a good learning guide for beginners. I'm sure it works very well, teaching new players how to calculate lines in advance. Thank you for taking the time to post this, I may use it for a class sometime...

I think dsarkar's being a little misunderstood. 

It seems his method is more of a way for beginners to organize their thoughts, than to learn to master this game.  If so, I think it'll prove to be a useful tool.

Before I nake a move - OTB, correspondence, live online, whatever - I ask myself, "What are my options and what are the consequences (good or bad)?"  Now, you can't accurately answer these questions without some tactical know-how and a general understanding of why a position is good or bad, but a beginner might find it helpful to actually write things down until they can properly visualize.  This might free some needed brain cells to concentrate on tactics and strategy.

If a newbie were to combine this method with an opening repertoire and a good deal of tactics practice and endgame study, I could see how it would help.

Hey i am just a beginner and i dont get most of it!!

No, because as you repeat all the time, this is for BEGINNERS, who DON'T KNOW YET what the probable / good moves are.

You make a method for beginners who can't recognize good moves, that can only work even a tiny bit if you only look at good moves.

No, having to look at all moves is the worst thing. It takes impossibly long - it cannot be done!

I think you should say, write down all the moves that look good to you (you can give them some guidelines for this, e.g. try to control the center, keep your king safe, attack his), plus definitely all checks, captures and 1-move threats.

You say you want them to start on something that is similar to what the GMs do - well they don't start considering all moves and then leave out the unimportant ones, they look at what the important ones are. The other way around.

 Yes. They don't start checking every possible move to see if perhaps happens to be a brilliancy, that takes too long.

Instead, they see that they can mate the king if only they could remove piece X (for instance), then they search for ways to do that. OR, the brilliancy has a standard pattern (like most), they recognize the pattern and look at the move to see if the pattern works.

It's the difference between just trying everything, and reasoning to work out / recognizing which things you need to look at.

This thread is about becoming a "top-notch" chess player. Whats the definition of "top-notch" ?

i want my wasted brain cell back

To expand it a bit on your concept dsarker...

Every game has a 'notes' section as well as the ability to visually analyze your options via the 'Analyze' button (located right below the messages/moves/details/notes section.

I would definitely recommend these tools to someone just starting out in chess.  They could jot down the options they like in the notes section, then play with them a bit in the Analyzer.

sorry I didn't read it to carefully..