Planning in Chess

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Avatar of DysfunctionalRealm

In some recent blitz I've often found myself pausing for a minute asking myself the question "what should I do?". After I've blitzed out familiar opening moves I find that I get stuck in the middle game not knowing what to do next.

 

How can one plan in chess? And how do you answer that question in your head "what should I do now?"

Avatar of notmtwain
great_thinker wrote:

In some recent blitz I've often found myself pausing for a minute asking myself the question "what should I do?". After I've blitzed out familiar opening moves I find that I get stuck in the middle game not knowing what to do next.

 

How can one plan in chess? And how do you answer that question in your head "what should I do now?"

I've seen your previous blog posting about how  you decided to give up caring about your rating after two years of studying. Exactly what did you study?  Typically, many books cover that very problem.


Avatar of kindaspongey

Maybe some game collections would help.

Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf

The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev

https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/

Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf

Avatar of TheBeard

+1 for Logical Chess.

It also sounds like Reasses Your Chess might be a good book to put some study time into, if positions is where you find yourself lost.

Avatar of kindaspongey

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708095832/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review769.pdf

Avatar of DysfunctionalRealm
notmtwain wrote:
great_thinker wrote:

In some recent blitz I've often found myself pausing for a minute asking myself the question "what should I do?". After I've blitzed out familiar opening moves I find that I get stuck in the middle game not knowing what to do next.

 

How can one plan in chess? And how do you answer that question in your head "what should I do now?"

I've seen your previous blog posting about how  you decided to give up caring about your rating after two years of studying. Exactly what did you study?  Typically, many books cover that very problem.


Yeah I did study a lot of strategy books, but I forgot quite a lot because I didnt play for a year and a bit. I've just found I've started going back to basics again.

Avatar of MrKornKid

I find my plan changes based off the opponents move.  In fast time controls I just go one move at a time.  Sometimes I plan a few moves based off of exchanges I guess.