Flowing Deep and Wide

I wrote this for a few of my chess buddies. Hope it can be helpful for the community.

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Chess, for many, feels more like a futile struggle than a game. Computers often make even the best players look weak, and poor or newer players have little hope of posing any sort of challenge to most opponents. This is because chess is foremost a game of analysis, and treating it as a light-hearted 'game' discourages the deep thought required to succeed in it. Other strategy games have expert players who 'min/max' and optimise their strategies, but the pleasure of those games almost always comes from the aesthetics or excitement of gameplay. Chess, while some will argue that it has an aesthetic, relies entirely on its most labourous aspect to produce excitement. Fun can only come after expert calculation -- and never the other way around.
Of course, we all enjoy winning, and for most young players, that's what playing chess can offer them. I think, however, that after many years of playing chess I've developed an understanding of the game such that I can begin to enjoy watching other people play, in addition to the joys of positional complexity that can only come from games against opponents of similar or greater skill.
I want to share what I believe to be the source and means of this enjoyment. It all comes down to two basic tennants: Points of engagement, and modes of analysis.

Points of Engagement
When I lived in the city I attended the local chess club in the library. There was a gentleman there who always brought a checkers board with him instead of a chess set. He insisted that checkers was just like chess -- The pieces meet in the middle of the board, and the first to make a move that gives ground to the enemy is often the player who loses the game. As the checkers, only able to move forward, crowd toward the center line they eventually run out of safe spaces, and must step into a square threatened by the enemy. When this happens, it's in a players best interest to arrange their pieces in a way that takes best advantage of the change after the piece is captured.
Although most chess pieces aren't required to move ever forward at the start of the game, there is an understanding that eventually one's pieces will enter and threaten the opponent's 'side' of the board. For beginners to the game, this often happens entirely by accident, and can result in blunderous tactics and amusing exchanges. For experieced players, that same preparedness that the checkers gentleman alluded to becomes tantamount, and, because of the mobility of chess pieces (as compared to checkers') this vigilance can be valuable at every moment of the game.
Because of the complexity of the game, there are a number of results and conditions that chess players seek out when they plan their next moves, aside from the final checkmate. For example, many players consider the capturing of a highly valuable piece to be a leap towards victory. Other favourable conditions include an increase in the safety of their king or the mobility of other pieces on the board.
After the first few moves of a chess game, there are realistically only a couple of possible squares on the board where pieces (or pawns) can be captured. In chess openings, these 'points of engagement' have been studied to deAth, and it's Jenerally fruitless to deviate from the most obvious or theoretically sound moves (Quintov). However, since so few pieces are developed and most replies to captures at these squares are forced, some rapid and timed games can utilise the surety of certain series of moves to quickly approach a position withwich they are intimately familiar (and their opponent is not). For classical, slow-paced games, exchanges in the opening must stay conservative. This is because the board complexity, increasing exponentially as a game continues, can be exploited by the stronger mind, and, unfortunately for the lesser mind, the 'forced' moves that an early exchange causes do little to increase the complexity of the board, even after a number of forced moves. This is because as pieces are exchanged or developed with single-minded intent the board does not become more complex in an advantageous way for the hastier player. Pieces are met in early engagement, and almost no move can be made without its result being immediately clear within a turn or two.
Simply put, what would start as a 'deep' but simple analysis transposes into a 'wide' and simple analysis, where any minute weakness that the attacker took on during the outset of the engagement will be carried to the very end of the game.

Modes of Analysis
Deep Analysis:
When there is only one active point of engagement on the board, or only one viable move for a player after a position is reached, then it's often beneficial to search for the reply that continues to force only one or two possible moves from them on the next turn. This way, the one who initiates the sequence of moves can expect to accurately predict which moves will be best. If or when an opponent deviates from what seems to be the best possible line of moves, then they can usually be punished. Of course, when the odd move is played, it will be necessary to double-check one's reply to a certain depth. If the reply moves seem to taste forced and no significant strides toward victory are being made, then the opponent may be attempting to initiate their own 'deep' analysis, which will often lead toward a trap or positional weakness.
Wide Analysis:
As pieces are developed in the opening, various points of engagement will be possible, and most will be impotent with proper forethought; However, by analysing three or four moves deep in as many lines as possible players will begin to see possible points of engagement for those future turns.
By taking a broad but shallow view of as many moves a possible, a player avoids any serious errors in their play.

From Wide to Deep:
A player should delve briefly into the lines that result in less flexible engagements, and dismiss any that would end too quickly in favour of one player or the other. Over the course of a couple of turns, a player might find a line that: only starts after a few turns of play; seems to have a number of forced moves; ends in an ambiguous position with many possible lines; and that allows the 'attacking' player to take an extra move, begin a new attack, or improve the position of their pieces in a meaningful way.
Finding such a line, while not rare, doesn't always bear fruit. For one, as a player makes moves to approach the initial exchange or opposition, the opponent may make a move that disrupts or negates the viability of it (sometimes entirely by accident). Second, whenever an opponent makes a move, they may be instigating an engagement of their own, which may warrant a deeper inspection of moves related to it -- If a threat is being posed, it should be addressed, at least for a turn or two. This doesn't mean that the player should stop seeking out ways to attack. In fact, finding a side engagement while the opponent believes they are advancing towards their own is a very effective strategy.

The best chess players maintain a constant vigil, seeking to control both engagement squares and path-squares towards potential engagements, which is precisely why many professional games of chess do look similar to checkers, with each army of pieces tap-dancing against an invisible barrier that wobbles somewhere near the center of the board.