How do you convert this +3.5 position? I ended up in a losing position.

Alright, I will check them out.

Excellent article!

And on a Larry Evans side note. He owuld always show up at the Reno tournaments and do a Q&A.  The most asked question always something about Fischer.  But i was curious as to why he was with Fischer during the candidates matches, but during the match with Spassky?

Larry Evans said that Fischer told him that his wife was not allowed to come along, so Larry said ok I'm not going. 

I've read and liked it.

I never could actually count space in a game though. I found too hard to apply

Just count how many squares each piece controls/moves to.

Once you understand the principles, it probably isn't necessary to actually do the count. Just look at the position and say to yourself: "I'm up in space, my opponent is cramped... let's look for alternating threats to run him ragged."

You betcha, but its like counting all the squares to determine if the king can catch the pawn before it promotes.  Then!  You learn about being in the square of the pawn. 

Alright, I went through the game and saw all the components for analyzing a position.

yes, I keep a rough estimate and usually the pawn structure helps me

I just can't keep track of how much space each side has after considering a move in a calculation. I'm more inclined to wait until the end of it, if enough pieces are using that space I sometimes actually count.

Evaluations (as opposed to calculations) should only be performed on quiescent positions anyway.

Calculate in dynamic positions, evaluate in quiescent positions.

The most important take-away from the thread is the Results Matrix in Post #12.

Hmm, I calculate until and evaluate after.

I have problems identifying the point of quiescence...(I can't even spell it) due to not being a tactical monster. So, I tend to evaluate more...knowing my weakness. Does that even make sense?

quiescently, yes

I keep it simple.  Anytime a pawn moves, or their has been an exchange.  I recalculate my game plan.

That's correct. You should calculate forward until the position that you are visualizing becomes quiescent (ie: until the tactics die down) and then evaluate that resulting position.

I can give a real-life example from a game that decided first place in a tournament:

I was alone in second place, half-a-point behind the tournament leader, and had the Black pieces against him in the last round. There were about six or seven players half-a-point behind me... so a draw was just about worthless to me, since it would land me in a four-way-tie for second place. I needed a win. I'll just skip forward to the critical position:

Hold up, hold up

I was kinda impressed with that sequence...until

I saw all the moves before.

Where the calculations actually begin?

My game?

It sort of went off the rails for BOTH players after I overlooked White's 19. Nxg5 idea... which turned out to be rather double-edged after my zwischenzug (in-between-move) 19. ... Nd4 instead of accepting the piece immediately.

In other words... I had completely overlooked White's 19th move (Nxg5), and he must have completely overlooked my reply (Nd4). From that point on, the game was pretty random, as you might expect.

The position in the diagram was moderately calm in the sense that neither player was immediately threatening anything. So I used that position as the jumping-off point for White's "combination" (which turned out to be a blunder instead of a winning line).

hmm

The chances of me remembering all that are probably worse than a one armed bandit at the casino telling you how many of each fruit he just saw. And my eyes would feel about same

uhhh i just played a game and even after staring at the position for 5 minutes i can't figure out why this is a blunder

And on top of that, all the computer's top recommendations were moving the rook on the b file. Don't I get a pawn with this move?

It was the basic principle (don't stop calculating half-way down a tactical line; evaluate at the END of the line, not in the middle) that I was trying to illustrate. The actual combination was just an example.

Leave the site analysis for the birds.