Always consider 5 moves!!

As above!

I assume you're speaking of considering five moves into the future of any given game your playing? I'm lucky if I can think 3 moves ahead. It is very good food for thought though. Thank you!

i can only think 1 move ahead.. but hey, it gets me somewhere!

 Exactly. Always 5 candidate Moves. This is a good habit to adopt and will increase your awareness and ability.

I think it's a good rule, most people probably only look at two or three candidates and could use a bit of prodding to go looking for alternatives.

I have found , from experience, that trying to consider 5 candidate moves , always, leads to regular and severe time trouble in otb play so I dont normally consider so many as 5 candidates. Depending on the "clock position" I might consider only 2 or 3 candidates.

I don't think it's meant literally (I don't think whoever invented this "rule" actually does this).

But many people suffer from tunnel vision and forget to actively look around for candidates (I often find it hard to think about more than one move when I was planning that move in advance...); trying to abide by a rule such as this for a while could help change their thinking.

I see it as a form of "when you see a good move, look for a better one." Doing that literally would also lead to time trouble :-)

That's from a clever guy.... all summed up and the best possible advice in just a few words. 

The OP indicated that he meant 5 Candidate moves.  

Meanwhile ... somewhere in the distance is this often repeated fact that what seperates the strong from the weak is the ability to not just follow the guidelines that make sense, but know when to break them.

The OP's statement requires disclaimers as to when not to follow it, a word about how it should not compromise time management or even better => why it is redundant to look for additional candidates when you have a candidate that wins cleanly.

always don't abide by rules blindly without concern to the specific conditions. 

If you know what  your opponent is tring to do, than you won't need those 5 moves...

Original Poster

"Reassess your chess" Silman

I dont wanna sound stupid..

but whats candidate moves?

(Example, i dont look at 5 candidate moves but i look at 2-3 because i dont wanna run out of time)

It pretty much is what it says ... a short list of moves you are going to consider based on a primary scan of the board. 

Based on how weak your chess is, your list might include silly, tactically unsound or even anti-positional moves that stronger players may not even bother looking at.

Most players will include every check, capture and threat (forcing moves) as a potential candidate and rule it in or out tactically before it enters the list.

Then the fun begins as you start playing  "king of the hill" when you try to mentally work out (via analysis) which candidate is clearly the best move to be played. Sometimes, during the analysis, you may add new "candidates" to the list you initially disregarded.  Ultimately => One "final" candidate will emerge! This whole process can be broken down into even more steps but most players seem to do this subconsciously.

 O.k. you could wait until "critical moments" in the otb game, then use the 5 Rule. See Bill Hartston's books. best regards from England.

 Yes, one of the best chess books Ive read & re-read. Best regards to you. Many of my friends tell me how beautiful Norway is.

5 choice moves is a good tip the best choice will be there time allowing i look at the more obvious few then usually regret it afterwards this will be good for me to bear in mind ta lad