there is no simple or easy way to recognize when this is but it is important to remember that a chess game is fluid and the positions change every move and it is our job to play the moves the position requires
yesterday i had a game as white in a queens gambit where black defended d5 with ...Nf6 (a slight inaccuracy-i forget the name of the “opening”)- the play is to take cxd then Nf3 then e4 to chase the black knight
so i was able to develop with tempos against the knight and it came a point where i could “play the rules/principles” or continue with a2-a3 and chase the knight again; i concluded that i would be playing b2-b4 eventually and i was ahead in development
i spent awhile on this move as the “rules/principles” said “too many pawn moves in opening...” but i o
I may have found why Chess is so difficult for me to grasp as a beginner. It's not that I don't understand the object of the game, it's rather simple in that you want to force your opponent into a situation from which he has no valid move. What's not so simple is getting from point A to point B.
My employer had us take a test for a team building exercise, they gave us the Gregorc Style Delineator, which shows how you process information, I found my results scarily accurate. I am a concrete sequential thinker, meaning I process information in an ordered, sequential, linear way.
Should be great for chess then right? Maybe, I don't know, I do think it could be my current problem though. Take this article from IM Daniel Rensch https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening I found it very interesting and learned some things I never knew, for instance: develop knights to attack pawns, and develop bishops to pin knights, then a huge bombshell, attack in the direction of your pawn structure. If you had asked me before I read that I would have said develop knights and bishops to attack the king, while pawns are just cannon fodder.
So what is my problem? Rules 1 through 6. But those are great rules you say, and what is my point? They are great rules, and my point is, because I process information in an ordered, sequential, linear way they appear to be my downfall. I can't stop myself from following those 6 rules in order every time and then my opponent ends up crushing me. Instead of deviating when the need arises I plow on in my own OCD'ish fashion and fail to capture material when the opportunity arises, thus I end up trapped and watch my pieces fall.
I don't know if I can rewrite my brain program to include any If-Then statements but I think I stumbled on my problem.