Those steps actually will help you with evaluation a position. Afterall, what is evaluation a position?
Material: The first advantage/disadvantage most people learn. Simple piece counting. A consideration of all position, but only one of many. You can have all the material you want, but it is useless, if it is undeveloped and can't come to the king’s defense in a time of need! Sounds strangely like making sure your pieces are safe, and actively placed.
Pawn Structure: Look for ways to damage your opponents pawn structure and always be aware of threats to your own. Too many pawn islands, isolated, and double pawns are bad. #1 through #4 could apply here.
Development: Having better development can often lead to having an initiative that can carry over into the middle game and sometimes even the endgame. #4 piece activity
King Safety: This one can NOT be over stated. If your king isn’t safe, what does it matter if you have the better pawn structure or more material! Be very careful about any pawn moves in front of your king. Once a weakness is created pawns can’t move backward so you have to live with it. #1-3-4 apply here
Space: Both an advantage and disadvantage. Having more space often leads to greater attacking chances because of the greater freedom of movement for the pieces. #4 piece activity
Control of Center: Very closely related to space. A piece’s value is not an absolute. If a piece control good squares it becomes valuable. #4 again...piece activity
1. Make sure all your pieces are safe - This will help you to examine the entire board. It makes you see where all the pieces are, and any threats. You cant evaluate a position, unless you can see any, and all threats first.
2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board - Again...you are forcing yourself to see the entire board. You cant evaluate the postion, if you arent seeing the position, and what it holds. Forcing moves should be played first, as they limit what your opponent can do.
3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponents pieces from your side of the board - If your opponent has pieces on your side of the board, that increases the chances of tactical possibilities. Any and all evaluation cant be accurate if you fail to see a mate in 1 or 2 or 3 or...
4. If your opponent doesnt have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece - A quiet position can still hold many surpises. But if it doesnt, and you dont immediately have any tactics, attacks, etc. Then improve the activity of your least active piece.
All good points and certainly will help with analysis and calculation. I'll have to see if I can't combine ideas in a way that will help me determine the overall evaluation at the end of that. Because, once the position reaches a static (or less dynamic place) and I'm not concerned yet with finding another move in the line, I need to be able to try and figure out who is better and approximately by how much.
I'm not even thinking I can get near 100% accuracy, but I'm hoping I can get a lot closer than I am right now. I don't mind being one step back so much, it's when I have the complete opposite evaluation of what the position is like that concerns me.
). Here is the first part.
I actually have the book but haven't read through it very recently. I'll have to see if I can find that part.
Page 20 is particularly relevant.
In terms of improving evaluation, I'm gradually going off using engine analysis since they have no concept of how hard it is for a human to play a particular position. There are many positions that engines regard as equal but yet it is much harder to play for one side than the other.
Instead I'm finding the study of GM games to be helping me. I recently looked at an Alekhine game where I underestimated a passed pawn and overestimated completing development in that specific position. Similarly I look at what pawn structures Karpov allows in his games, etc.
One of my weaknesses with evaluation is letting one factor dominate too much, such as overvaluing the bishop pair while ignoring a loss of time to maintain them. Or choosing a line that removes a weak pawn of mine while forgetting that it also removes one of my opponent's weaknesses too. Of course, every position is specific so I'm not suggesting general rules.