What is your method of thinking in a tournment game and or long game. ( time controls 40 mins). I was always taught to find there best move and find the best way to stop it based off their imbalances? Am I right or do I need to go another direction?
Too defensive.
I made a video covering "Important Chess Questions" to have in your internal dialogue.
Maybe it can help...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYHQuKgT5Uk
~Jerry~
What is your method of thinking in a tournment game and or long game. ( time controls 40 mins). I was always taught to find there best move and find the best way to stop it based off their imbalances? Am I right or do I need to go another direction?
Too defensive.
I thought it was, whats your method?
What is your method of thinking in a tournment game and or long game. ( time controls 40 mins). I was always taught to find there best move and find the best way to stop it based off their imbalances? Am I right or do I need to go another direction?
Too defensive.
I thought it was, whats your method?
Looking at your rating, I'm in no position to give you advice.
I don't usually have a formal thought process, but when I do, it's:
What does he threaten?
What do I want to do?
What can he do about it?
Virtually all blunders can be prevented by answering the first and third questions.
After my opponent has moved and I have figured out why he made that move, I look for any tactics and combinations for myself. If there are none I look for ways to improve my position or create weaknesses in his. I then decide if I can put my plan into action before my opponent can his, or do I need to worry about stopping his.
Of course that is correct. The problem is you need a much more detailed method. In general (not detailed enough):
1) Evaluate the position by looking at positional imbalances and "tactical imbalaces" (if you can spot tactics in the position). If you don't have knowledge here you may have difficulty to build a plan. The more your knowledge, the better the plan, the less candidate moves you can consider.
2) Based on the plan, select candidate moves. You should at least have two imo, to avoid blunder (because you are forced to compare, not just "let's see what happen").
3) Calculate each candidate moves and compare the resulting positions. Pick the best one. You can do a blunder check, but I think it has been covered.
Those three steps can be made more detailed, especially in a complex tactical position, where you don't want to do it in a random manner and miss an important sub-process, or miss a good move.
This is my method of thinking: First I steer the game into opening theory that I know better than my opponent through preparation of novelties and memorization in most mainlines. Once my opponent deviates then I do what other people are suggesting: which is to look for imbalances and construct a plan which usually shouldn't exceed 5 moves. Look for tactics too and after your opponent deviates figure out the purpose of his move and why it is not as strong as the mainline, then find an effective counter. This approach is pretty good for long time controls as in 90min with 30second delay. I find that 40mins is not enough time, so in shorter time controls like 40mins its really about outpreparing your opponent with novelties(new moves) and wasting their time and then killing them with complications as they will blunder in time trouble.
Ultimately, your strategy has to be altered based on the time control and tournament situation. An example of tournament situation would be like you are in the last round and you only need a draw to win a prize. That means you're not going to go out of your way to play the Botvinnik variation of semi-slav and go into a sharp position, but just play something quieter, so your strategy/thinking for your moves depend on this also.
What is your method of thinking in a tournment game and or long game. ( time controls 40 mins). I was always taught to find there best move and find the best way to stop it based off their imbalances? Am I right or do I need to go another direction?