Handeling Long Calculations

Hey all,

Wanted to see if anyone had advice for handeling--what I consider--long move calculations, 5-8 moves ahead.  It happens to me frequently where I'm in the middle game and we're about to do a big material exchange and I forget or don't see one element that throws off my calculations and I loose material. What's the best way to plan ahead and see everything?

I'd be grateful for tips and links to articles.  Thanks!

Might help to know where you stand, ratings wise either on a online server or a OTB federation like USCF. If you are sub-2000 USCF (like me!), you really need to first ensure that you're playing consistent "real" chess and not "hope chess" before worrying about how far your ply-depth / board vision can go.

In other words, if you make a move and DID NOT factor all of your opponent's forcing (checks, captures, threats) responses to THAT MOVE and if you have NOT convinced yourself that you can deal with ALL of them and still be safe, THEN you're playing hope chess and it already shows that your ply depth barely exceeds 2 moves to begin with!

Assuming you're good enough to be already doing that ON EVERY MOVE (no cookies if you do that 90% of time, chess doesn't give you an A for effort!)  ... 

A few pieces of advice that were given to me were:

1. Solving tactical puzzles with multiple motifs helps develop your analysis muscles plenty, provided you sincerely working out all the forcing lines in your head TILL  quiescence, not just deducing  the first move and hand-waving through the rest. (something most of us are notorious for doing!)

2. Use Fritz's (version 9/10 and above?) Analysis Trainer. Find rich "loud" tactical positions and come up with Principal Variations and have Fritz grade the quality of your analysis.

3. I've also found that playing won positions against a chess program that lags 2-4 ply (the computer shows you the board 2-4 half-moves before, expecting you to hold the next two moves made in your head!)   is remarkably good at helping you anchor positions in your head.

4. You mentioned counting errors, NM Dan Heisman has a few novice nook articles ( google 'em) dedicated to this problem and how one can correct them, including this month's (latest) article.

http://www.chesscafe.com/heisman/heisman.htm

Thanks for the quick reply!

Right now I'm about 1100 (at least that's what this game software tells me).  I have read Heisman's "Thinking Cap" articles and I'm working hard on not playing "hope chess."  Which is why I posted: I'm okay calculating 5 moves out but beyond that the tree gets so big I get lost (forgeting distant pieces and remote threats).

One thing I thought was maybe I should just avoid those complex positions, meaning don't allow so many gaurded threats to build up.  I think that would mean exchanging material sooner rather than later, but dunno.  Thoughts?

Thanks for the tips, I'll try them out!

Tactics training will help with this a lot. There's a few good sites (including chess.com) that have tactics trainers. The goal here is that you won't have to calculate too much to realize an exchange can win or lose material. You'll get so practiced that you just know at a look, and then you calculate to double-check.

Given that you estimate your playing strength to be 1100 based on a chess program, I would say you need to crawl before you walk.

90% of the games you lose today will be due to a million other reasons than "not" being able to see beyond 5 moves ahead ... you'd do well to remove this romantic notion that "calculating 4-5 moves deep accurately" implies success at chess. It makes zero practical sense to be able to generically say that "I'm seeing up to 5 moves, but I can't see further" ... as a poster already stated, only forcing moves are even worth grinding down in that manner till you reach a position of quiescence.

I'm 1700 USCF and "being able to see just about 3 ply (half-moves) ahead of forcing variations" was more than sufficient to get me where I am.   I find that deep grinding any more moves than that only occurs in calculations with king and pawn endgames and once in a while in the middle game for loud / tactical positions.

Even then, how successful I am at solving that position depends on a combination my experience/feel for positions like that, my gut, my evaluation skills, the time control situation and *gasp* my analytical/calculation skills ... I just don't dive head first into a calculation tree!

With that being said ...

 Should I work on practicing to grind deeper like a computer for every move ? Sure! Any form of chess practice will have some benefit!

Is that the most efficient use of my time to get better at chess? Heck no! That's what I and some of the other posters are trying to say.   There are a lot of other things I'd pay attention to ... like going over the mistakes I make in my games, am I following good opening guidelines, am I knowledgeable about basic end games etc.

Just practice enough multiple-motif tactics and you'll find that being able to grind down forcing lines upto N moves (where N increases with practice) accurately becomes a pleasant side-effect  :)