hmmm...interesting topic...I posted this image a few days ago with the question: What kind of chess player are you? 
How to think like a chess player
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For me, I usually have a general idea of the position as I play. If I move one move at a time, then I know the position is going to be exactly the same as last move except for 2 things (white moved and black moved), but if I am placed in a random position such as a tactics puzzle, I can often spend ages trying to figure out what to do. I usually start with forced moves. If there is nothing forced I can do, I move on to what can my opponent do to me. After that, I lookout for common tactics like forks, pins and skewers and whatever can better position my pieces. It all just comes with experience I guess.
Nov 26, 2010
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#29
Laughed out loud hard when I worked through the sequence and got to Pushwood's photo! 
yes, this is something I wonder about this. Maybe my brain can't think like a chess player?? but today I won 2out of 3 for the second time tonight with my friend :) and he says he is tired of whooping all the guys that he plays there because the first time we played I beat him the first two games. thanks to the practice I have been getting here of course :)
Nov 27, 2010
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#31
Cystem_Phailure wrote:
Laughed out loud hard when I worked through the sequence and got to Pushwood's photo!
+1!
trysts wrote:
What kind of chess player are you?
Funny!! all those babies! :)
When I play chess,
I like to think of ways of confusing/tricking my opponent at every oppurtunity. Also something to consider, if you are losing, is that it is sometimes easier to trick your opponent since they think they are winning so they loosen up their guard a little. I win a lot of matches in this way.
Other than that, I always look for obscure tactics which would be hard to detect. Anything that is sneaky.
The most important principle to note, is to always bear in mind your opponents plan/moves. Each move you make, you should ask yourself 'In what way can I make my opponents plan more difficult to achieve?' and also 'What can I do to make my plan closer to completion?' Keep one eye on your own moves and the other on your opponents and then your chess will be more effective.
I don't think any of you, except maybe Cystem, even began to answer what the OP was asking.
He was asking for an algorithm or heuristic of analyzing a board to project ahead and see the various possibilities.
Most of you answered about all sorts of things that already assume knowledge of "weak squares" and "good positions" and "pawn structure" etc.
Im looking for something like "Step one, pick a piece. Imagine all the moves it can make. Figure out how these interact with all the lines of possibility for your opponents moves. Make a probability-and-value judgment based on all these possibilities of what might be the move that has the best trade off of risk to gain" except more systematic. I'm talking REAL nuts and bolts here. I know for all you chess types this probably has just become routinized and subconscious so that for you it just feels like instinct or intuition, but your brain is doing SOMETHING on a very grainy level, it's actually making calculations, and though it might take some introspection, I'd like to know what exactly those calculations are supposed to be on the blow-by-blow level. What is the relevant data (is it on the individual piece level? Or is it more generic than that? Or a mix?) and what specifically is analyzed (again, is it the huge spectrum of individual possible moves considered individually? Or something like "intersecting lines" of motions for all the pieces on the board? Or something like a "statistical addition" that combines multiple probabilities in very general trends?)
What EXACTLY is a chess player supposed to be calculating? What is the unit of consideration?
Just play a lot. Put some games to analisys and try to find what u did wrong, or could have done better. See some games from pros and ull get better. Good Luck!
Anyone got any tips on how to analyse your games?