Improving My Game

Hi, I would say I am at beginner level but do have a decent understanding of simple moves and techniques.

In terms of improving my game i have been using the tutorials and lessons but always have one problem. My anticipation skill is poor, I think 2, 3, 4 moves ahead with what I think the opposition would do but then my plan goes out the window and I have to re-plan everytime.

Is this a common thing that I will get over with time and more practice or is there a specific way to develop anticipation?

Anticipation skills as you term it need to be bounded and realistic.  When you say  "see 2,3,4 moves etc." generically, you really are trying to find a needle in a haystack ... it's just not realistic or efficient.

In order to climb up to an intermediate strength of play, you really only need to pay attention to forcing lines that your opponent can play in response to your own move. (Checks, Captures,  or moves that threaten something harmful if ignored).    

Other moves (non-forcing) are relatively less important .. and even distracting as you are at a point in your chess development where simple tactical errors dictates the end result of 99% of your games.

Once you get good (board vision gets better) at spotting all forcing moves that your opponent can play in response to your "planned move", you need to then start getting good at calculating these forcing lines out and seeing if the resulting position is better for you or him (evaluation skills).

This "forcing move scan" will result in you picking better moves to play.

Put these all together and you'll be on the road to playing safer chess.

Try writing up a worksheet with the following columns and playing your next chess game (online, club etc.) with it.

C1. His Move

C2. Your "planned" move (don't play it yet)

C3. What are all of his checks, captures and threats if you play this move? [list them all out]

C4. Can you deal with them safely? (calculate all of these options in C3 out and put a check-mark on top of them if you can deal with them safely...if NOT ... i.e. there's something forcing that he can play that you cannot safely deal with, then go back to C2 ... you need to find ANOTHER move to play!!!

Addendum: Before somebody says "what about the opening, strategy or positional factors" and starts quoting Silman-isms about "imbalances",  realize that for most beginners, you really have to learn how to crawl before you learn how to walk.  Learning to play safe moves is the foundation.  Everything else comes later! Take it from me ... a person who ignored this for many years  => a disciplined approach to playing safe chess in the beginning has a greater return-on-investment than getting ahead of yourself reading/quoting Nimzo's "My System" when you are still regularly dropping pieces and pawns in your games.

@1zer0

Shivsky has given you very good advice.  I would add, regarding the written worksheet's first line C1., it should read:

C1. His move, What is the threat? 

There are many training regimens for improving your game.  They all include a very important first exercise:

Practice the basic checkmate endgames (K+R v K, K+Q v K, K+2B v K, and K+B+N v K) until you can do them in your sleep.  By doing this you will come to realize that there is on endgame technique in all the basic endgame checkmates, I call it "corraling the enemy King."  In other words you fence the enemy King inside the power(the squares) that your piece(s) controls, then you make that fenced in area smaller and smaller by tempoing the enemy King at every position where the King's are in oposition.  By repeating the process, you slowly drive the enemy King into one of the corners of the board and deliver checkmate.  The cautions while executing this process are stalemate (especially with K+Q v K)

The benefits of practicing these basic endgame checkmates until you can do them in your sleep is visualization.  I guarantee you that after practicing these basic checkmates for 3 months,  the mating net(s) present in a position of a game you are currently playing, will jump up off the board and smack you in the forehead in a flash.   That flash that reveals the probable mating net will cut down the # of moves you have to consider and calculate out forced lines in a position.

There is lots more to a training regimen to improve all facets of your analyzing skill in any given chess position.

I would add a couple of thoughts to the excellent posting above.

First, when you are looking for your opponent's responses to your candidate move, make sure you don't stop at the first good one you find. This is similar to the axiom "when you find a good move, look for a better one." I can't count the number of times that I had found my opponent's "obvious" response only to be surprised by their actual move.

One other step I am still trying to instill in my brain, don't fall in love with your plan to the point it blinds you. This is probably just another way of warning against overconfidence. Many are the times when my move was "so good" that I didn't bother to look for all my opponent's responses and then, you guessed it, I got hammered.

Good luck.

Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated. I must be getting better because I can increase the AI level every couple of days and keep high win percentage ;) guess its just a case of practice makes perfect and keep learning

thanks