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Nice

“Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like
Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game”
(Nigel Short)

Well thats funny Lol Nigel was just trying to sound Cool..

This is a simple one. Avoid creating weaknessess like unprotected pieces and weak pawns and exploit the opponent's weaknesses. Study tactics. Checkmating is just one of the tactics.

I look for my general plan, and for my opponent's, then I find a move that makes sense given my idea about the position.  I imagine the candidate move as if it's made and try to punish it in terms of tactics, space, tempo, plans, anything.

In the opening usually has to do with the center and development.  Nearing the middle game has to do with pawn breaks, coordination, space, and tempo.  Nearing the endgame has to do with which combination of pieces is acceptable for the endgame.

Of course the "secret" unspoken part of any player's play is how they reference positions with known positions in memory.  Patterns too like tactics and maneuvers.  All this guides calculation and general decision making.

I have my own general theory of chess so to speak (lol).  So yes I could write a lot, but it's long winded and in the end not very useful for practical play.  Also I'm not a master.  Pick up Kotov's book Think Like a Grandmaster.  So yeah... it's a whole book on how to think.

I read that one of de Groot's findings was that masters calculate more and more deeply than GMs during a game, but the moves the GMs look at are more relevant.  Also of course their evaluations are more correct.  IMO the difference in strength is simply the ridiculous number of internalized lessons (through play, study, and accurately generalized ideas).  IIRC it was de Groot again who estimated GMs "know" as many as 100,000 positions vs a master's 10,000.

So back to Kotov.  He talks about picking a candidate move... but how to know which moves are good candidate moves?  He doesn't get into that.  That comes with experience and study... i.e. your personal database of known positions and corresponding evaluations.

That's my understand of it anyway.

1.Autopilot mode in the opening.If he deviates then i start to think.

2.Choose candidate moves.Be specially keen on calculating forcing moves and evaluate the end position.Then choose the line that will pose the most problems for my opponent.

3.If things get very complicated and you dont know what's happening.Then i go with my instinct first.Calculate that line to assure nothing will go wrong.If i still have plenty of time,then I may try to calculate the other lines

That's cool .  Autopilot in the opening.