I disagree--this thought process may work for correspondence chess, but it will not make you a good over-the-board or live chess player.

In those venues, it's not about finding the best move, it's about finding the best move in the limited time available to you. NM Dan Heisman stresses a no-blunder thought process focusing on Checks, Captures, and Threats.

On an average correspondence chess move, I consider 2-3 moves and 3-5 ply. That seems to be plenty to compete at the 2000 chess.com level.

this all just flew right over my head i did not understand half of it

I agree with likesforest - this is an extreme version of Kotovs tree analysis principle and not going to be the best system in all cases. The point will always be, how do you know which line is better then an other? I'm sure a beginner could very beautifully draw me a 5 ply tree diagram and of the 20 possible lines tell me they would avoid the one in which they lose their Queen, but what about all the other lines? How does a beginner know which line is better, how can a good player instantly see which line is better without calculating but a beginner can't?  The answer to this question comes from understanding the "imbalances" within the game down to the very fine and subtle positional or endgame chances two different lines may give. Pure calculation is worthless on its own. This kind of computer like calculation is only the "icing on the cake", I would recommend a beginner makes the cake before they start worrying about the icing and understands the different "imbalances" and "endgames", the correct move will then be more instinctive then by numbers. 

You make a good point but also miss the point completely. If I were to show you 10 different lines none of which give away material or fall into a mating net how could you assess which line was the best? To a beginner they would all seem very similar but to an expert they would all seem very different? How can this be? Is there not a flaw in your concept? Why spend hours gathering data if you have no idea what to do with it. First understand what you are looking for (imbalances and endgames) and then your concept has more purpose.

I could argue both sides of this.  I think there is a certain chess understanding that will point you to spend your time looking at certain types of moves.  This comes from the fundamentals like piece development, control of the center, seeing weaknesses and attacking them.  On the other hand, a chess position my have many hidden complexities and nuances, where a detailed approach like this would be well rewarded.  Ultimately I think you have to find the method that works for you, you will gravitate to where your interests and strengths are.  But you should be open to trying something like this even if it doesn't immediately appeal, at least from time to time.  Using different approaches will teach you new things and open new doors of thought.

ooh thats super helpful to beginners ^_^

by dsarkar
Baltimore, MD United States

Way too many moves possible, try to restrict to 2 to 3 moves, not all possible moves.

Why is playing simultaneous games the only other side of the spectrum? Can't playing a few normal time control games and analyzing them with a free (as you emphasized) chess engine like Fritz 6 be more valuable? Now I do not mean to bash your system, but you mention it is for beginners??? After looking through 10 possible combinations how is a beginner supposed to determine the best line? Can a beginner effectively grasp the importance of a rook on the 7th rank or a bishop in an endgame with pawns on different sides of the board without previously reviewing this kind of material? Of course not. You mention that by going through calculations a beginner will eventually obtain the ability to assess positions better...but, instead of grinding through a million lines to find a possible tactical pattern and learn from it, wouldn't just studying patterns themselves and the concepts behind them be far more effective (not to mention more practical and time productive). Now this system may work well for you, but you mentioned you are returning to chess, meaning you have already studied basic concepts, tactics, and positional scenarios I presume. Probably very different from a beginner without a positional or tactical knowledge. Sorry for the long post, I just have trouble agreeing with the fact that by going through immense chains of calculations, I'll learn more than by picking up a good tactics book or positional primer. I stand by going over games with a chess computer - you learn your weaknesses and can learn tactics through your own missed opportunities.

dsarkar> But how will a beginner know which moves to select?

The first concern of a beginner should be to avoid hanging pieces or pawns, not fall for cheap-o mates, and punish their opponent for these. A good practice is to select the moves that are CHECKS or CAPTURES for analysis.

In the opening, often neither of these are possible. Then, let this be your guide:

   http://www.exeterchessclub.org.uk/Openings/10openrules.html

And make sure you know how to mate with King + Queen or King and Rook. As soon as possible, begin studying, so you can stop being a beginner. :)

dsarkar> I am just showing them a short-cut,

Analyzing all moves takes much longer than analyzing selected moves.

dsarkar> they were lynched or severely criticised by people who never bother to try it themselves. Galeleo was penalised by revealing truths

Look, you aren't Galileo, and nobody's out to lynch you!

You posted this in the Scholastic Chess forum and mentioned IM norms and national championships. As a per-move thought process, I'm just pointing out this method would flop over the board and isn't necessary to make 2000+ here.

I suspect it would be good as an analysis exercise in some selected positions. If it's working for you at correspondence chess, great, and if others want to give it a try, that's great too. Good luck and have a Merry Christmas.

Here is a start....

As the game starts, White has only 20 possible moves on his first move.

 1. a4 Ware opening

1. a3 Anderssen opening

1. b4 Polish opening

1. b3 nimzo-larsen opening

1. c4 English opening

1. c3 Saragossa opening

1. d4 Queen Pawn opening

1. d3 Mieses opening

1. e4 King pawn opening

1. e3 Van't Kruijs opening

1. f4 Bird's opening

1. f3 Gedult's opening

1. g4 Grob opening

1. g3 Hungarian opening

1. h4 Kadas opening

1. h3 Clemenz opening

1. Na3 Sodium attack

1. Nc3 Van Geet opening

1. Nf3 Zukertort opening

1. Nh3 Amar opening

Black then has a possible 20 moves in response to each of those opening moves. So, after the first move by both players there are 400 different positions on the board. (1 ply)

When white makes his second move, there are more than 20 possible choices and the same with blacks second move. still that would make this tree diagram have over than 160,000 positions.(2 ply)

"5.Carry on steps 3 & 4 for 3-plys (3 your moves, 3 opponent moves) - it will be huge initially, but as you become more experienced, this will be smaller."

Ok, 3 ply will give me a diagram with over 64,000,000 possibilities...many are duplicate....and after taking the duplicates out....I still have 9 million possibilities? And you want a beginner to continue this to 5 to 8 ply? Is that right?

"8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 until you have 5-8 ply (at least 5).
9.Now go through all of them - select the best-looking line."

I'm not really a fan of how you're calling people who disagree with this system "lazy". I mean, I'm not a pro in any sense of the word, but I just find that system to be a waste of time.

In my opinion, there's no point in playing out the lines if you don't know the reason for doing it. The best way to learn this is to watch high level games, or play your own and learn from your mistakes.

Beginners muck about, nothing else.

 You make some valid points and your intentions are indeed well-natured in which I thank you for giving advice to those just starting out. But let me just point out some flaws, at least from my point of view, of the limits of your system (mind you I haven't actually tried implementing it due to my fear of it being ineffective time management and my overall comfort with elimination of major blunders so feel free to point out anything I have falsely misrepresented, which I apologize for now). "Missing blatant oversights" - the classic beginner mistake - leaving pieces en prise, falling into pins, skewers, double attacks, etc. Any system that eliminates these mistakes would be a system worth trying. Unfortunately, going through 3 ply has already been mentioned as at least 100 possibilites (even in an endgame). Sure you eliminate oversights, but they will come from the wrong initial opportunities in the first place, let me explain: If you go over all the possible opening and replies for 4 -ply you'll find Fool's Mate, but this blunder could easily be avoided by learning to just concentrate on the d and e pawns for the opening (probably saving you hours worth of time).

As an aside, I don't think someone who is spending time to go over their games with a computer to learn would be very likely to cheat with it. Not to mention if that's the case they're not a serious beginner and wouldn't be reading any of our comments in the first place.

FInally, hold your horses there Galileo. I don't think Chess.com has any plans on banning this new system and throwing heliocentrism out the window. No need to attempt to empathize with other's situation, I'm sure none of the people who posted like RobertTG, likesforests, and me feel cheated by any means. We are just trying to help beginners (in my case including helping myself) learn the best methods to improvement.

REALLY FINALLY: I can't count how many times you've said it's a shortcut but I've thought about it and there's no way I could save time doing this method. I kindly ENCOURAGE you to post an example of the use of this system in one of your games and how it helped you learn something effectively. Maybe I've misintrepreted the whole thing but from what you have written, the facts don't line up.

dsarkar, your idea is the good one and obviously anyone calculating the moves one way or another. But the implementation of your idea is very incorect. The most important - it is useless work, your work while just trying to ivent the wheel, that is already invented, and work of the beginners to try calculate tons of extra garbage moves and lines. Just read any book about, one of the best is Kotov's book, the name of it (aproximated, i saw it not in english) is "The secrets of chess mind", or maybe "The secrets of chess player thinking", or something like that. There is your good idea explained correctly and there is given good suggestions to beginners, not like your unreal notepad version at the start of the topic. For example, beginner should first determine candidate moves, not all those extra garbage moves possible, after that he should pick one of candidates and look for best responses for it, and only if he cant determine the one best response or cant evaluate this move/line, then he should look deeper in this line with the repeating the same procedure to it. Then he must made his evaluation of that line. After that he should made the same to other candidate moves. Then he can determine what candidates are bad and dont look for them, while look deeper the remaining candidates until the best one is determined. Within the methods of picking moves to look or to beware of it gives possibility to build and memorize lines for many moves away (even 10 or 20), because one can clear them from garbage from the start and while processing, and lines are already cleared from blunders (in ideal of couse :)). While you suggest to take all those garbage and calculate it all, trying to memorize hundreds or thousands (!!!) of moves and positions - you can do that maybe :), but can begginer do? ;) Also another your mistakes are:

- the time factor, if you claimed that for several hours all that garbage lines can be calculated if one is not lazy boar, then all those hours one can spend much more efficient, for example much more better evaluate the same lines because he calculated them much faster with correct methods. Or calculate more deeper and more clear for the same given time. If you claim that you could do all this with garbage calculations just by a day or two, then just imagine how much could be done for day or two if not waste it for garbage calculations. Just example, nothing more. :)

- the huge amount of useless extra moves to calculate automaticaly leads to many mistakes and blunders just because blending effect.

- you trying to fit the method to yourself, it fits you - you proved that, but you are not the begginer and already probably have the needed skill to clear garbage apart of the valuable moves.

But again, it is very good topic, because any beginner after reading it can became familiar with that idea and can start his own way to implement this idea in his games.

WAAAYYYY  too difficult and boring for the beginner.  

Probably you just cant understand your mistakes. All things are already explained upper the topic, so not need to despute about. Have your own opinion if you so like it - nobody mind! :)

Nobody is perfect. But by saying this words you showed that you even didnt read the Kotov's book.

"If you can continue to do that upto 8-10 plys, you can play with a master."

I dont do that and i have played with a master.

If the method is for beginners, why did you title the thread "How to become a top-notch chess player"? That was quite misleading eh? Here are free resources for total beginners.

• Thirty Rules of Chess
  
• How to Find a Master Class Move

It's based on Cecil Purdy's methods for selecting a chess move. If you can find it, I highly recommend buying Purdy's Search for Chess Perfection II (YES...BUY A BOOK). Purdy was a world champion correspondence player, and a master OTB player.

COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WERE BABBLING ON ABOUT BUT IT SOUNDS AS IF YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT IT ALSO SOUNDS LIKE IT WOULD TAKE A YEAR OR SO JUST TO WRITE IT ALL DOWN NEVER MIND GO THROUGH TRIAL AND ERROR