Break a position down into its smallest individual units and get a feel for the spirit of the position, which is a way of saying its most important positional elements. Are you stronger on the kingside or queenside? Is the center issue resolved?
How to play with a strategy?
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What strategy is and how to study it are not simple topics, especially for someone with a relatively low rating like me. I offer a view in this blog post.
There are plenty of good books on this topic. I'd start with Silman's "The Amateur's Mind" and "How to Reassess Your Chess".
Apr 5, 2015
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#5
I agree with Fromper's advice above. In analyzing my own thought processes, I realized that, in the absence of any mistakes, many times plans reduced to nothing more than placing pieces on promising squares and making moves characteristic of the particular opening, waiting for some mistake by my opponent to exploit. I used to call my simple, short-term plans "mini-plans", then I read IM Jonathan Hawkins' book (quoted below) and found out that Hawkins came to same conclusion, although he called him "little plans." That was quite reassuring to me, of course, since that demonstrated that I had discovered the path to "IM-ship" on my own, even without such advice! Little plans are the general advice you often read about: using a good knight outpost, doubling rooks on an open file, expanding in the center with a pawn push, offering to trade off an important protective knight or bishop near the castled king, gaining the bishop pair, etc.
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(p. 13)
Finally in Lesson 4 we will look a little deeper at the art of planning, and intro-
duce what I call 'little plans'. These are short-term plans which improve the position
and can be realized one after the other. While never losing sight of our grand ideas
to win (or draw) the game, we recognize that in practice it is often done in small,
cumulative steps.
Hawkins, Jonathan. 2012. Amateur to IM: Proven Ideas and Training Methods. New Highlands, MA: Mongoose Press.
I know this may seem a stupid question. But the fact is that I am on the same level for a long time. One of the reasons is probably that I don't understand what playing with a strategy means.
I know what tactics are but I don't know what strategy means in terms of chess. Could someone explain it to me and give me some examples. Keep in mind that I am not a good player.
Should I try to improve strategy or will my strategy improve as I improve other aspects?
How can I improve strategy at my level?