How did you Improve your Strategic Positioning?

If pawn structure, strategic positioning of pieces do not yield a good plan. Then all GMs rely on pure calculation to formulate their plan, because the best move is simply one that is calculated as better. I think there must be some way a GM could look into a position that is unfamiliar, never before seen, and come up with a good plan, that's not even well thought out or thought through all the way, just based on good intuition. There must also be an algorithm to generate this in your head.

There are probably ways to communicate and train such an algorithm, but few seem to know it...I guess that is what most of these "thinking method" and middlegame strategy books try to distill.  

I think with practice and trial-and-error, one learns to assess the position with an eye for what has burned them the most and what comes easier to remember for whatever reason (you like horsies so you are more keen on knight movements).  I just think that you need effective practice most importantly and that principles or algorithms are an attempt by the expert to try to consciously communicate what they are mostly subconsciously evaluating.  So while it does help to break things down into principles (so a process can be learned effectively in 5-6 years instead of 10-12), you need the personal experience (either drilling, playing) to create that autobiographical personal experience which burns it quicker into your long-term memory.  

You may better "learn" to remember to look at your opponent's bishop on the opposite side of the board if it cost you the city championship, for instance, rather than just reading a book where the GM-author says "don't forget to look at threats, like your opponents' long-range pieces on a distant strong square, because it can cost you the game...see I told you so, you didn't listen."  Rather, it is simply lack of experience in this setting than lack of "knowledge" or "principles".

He's not (or at least I'm not) saying that it's about pawns only, nor am I saying that simple rules like where the pawns point will make planning easy. Not at all. It's usually more complex than that. I think what estragon missed is that it's also about how the pieces fit in with the pawn structure. On some rare occasions you might not want to attack where your pawns point, because although you may have space in one sector, if your pieces aren't there (this usually happens because of poor play though) then you can't exploit it and if on the other hand your enemy has lots of heavy pieces there, he might actually want open lines! There are specific plans that come out of specific pawn structures though. It's because of the pawn structure in the QGD exchange that black will have an easier time attacking than white would (white could try to grab space on the kingside but this is rarely ideal because it creates weaknesses on the e file), and it's the pawn structure and open c file that makes the minorty attack possible.

Also consider a french type of position in which black played ...cxd4 and   white recaptured with the c pawn. In an endgame, black may well stand better (well at least if he gets rid of the bad bishop!) even though he's down in space, because with many pieces traded off his pieces will all be able to fit into the pawn structure, and so he can just concentrate on d4 being weak while white's cramp is much less effective as well as any kingside attack. If there were many pieces on the board though and there wasn't much pressure on d4, white would be much better. Black would have too many pieces to handle ( probably being on the first two ranks) while white's pieces will be very aggressive, ready to attack.

I'd be curious to see an example when you came up with a plan with little consideration of first of all the pawn structure, and how pieces fit in it. I guess in wide open positions this doesn't apply as much but it still does in some sense; your pieces "fit" in a no center pawns structure simply if they're well developed. In those positions it tends to be who's pieces are more active/centralized.

Two things stand out:  1)  Koltanowski's book on the Colle system showed me the strategy of the opening and I played it for over twenty years.  2) In 1961 Leonard Barden presented a 12 part survey of the Modern (then called the Kotov-Robatsch) which again carried me for over twenty years.  This took me from about 1900 - 2280.  With the passage of time 200 points have vanished.

Ugh, time does suck indeed.

I suppose then learning one opening extremely well could go a long way to help your skill.

By sticking to one opening you learn the middle-games that arise.  While your opponent is looking for a plan, you've been here dozens of times and you know what do you.

Ok, I forgot specifically what comments my post was about (and who made them), but this makes sense so we probably agree :)

@ the bold-ed part of the quote -- I think I've had the opposite problem in the past, I've come up with a plan based only on the pawns, and/or tend to overvalue a superior/inferior minor piece especially good/bad bishops in an endgame... although I'm not completely over this yet :)  So that's where I was coming from, yes you have to look at the whole board and all the pieces -- and sometimes you can fool yourself into thinking you're considering it all when you're not, or at least your evaluations are skewed.  Anyway I think we agree.

I meant a successfull plan without looking at the pawn structure.

I guess it would be wrong to say so much about the pawns forming the plan, because really everything needs to be considered, but pawns are just a big part of it.

I had been playing chess for years, yet I had to go back and study and learn again as a beginner.  I reviewed the very basic lessons, and apply them as an idiot player. I thought about reprogramming my thought process.  Now it helped me to see targets much quicker and sort through possibilities as well.