Plans and Stuff

You always hear people talking about their plans in chess and how the higher rated players play with a plan from start to finish.

In my little world however, my plan is to keep from losing my pieces, capture a piece or two from the opponent, and eventually promote a pawn and checkmate the enemy king unless luck smiles on me and I am able to do it quicker. There are all kinds of little tactical plans incorporated in that scheme but that is the overall plan on the way to the doing the chicken dance to the fridge after a win.

Is that why I'm so low rated? Please explain the details of a good example of a chess plan from a solid level (1700 and above).

I am still thinking along those lines. I don't understand any other way to think. I've read Silmans The Complete Book of Chess Strategy but it seemed to teach that during the game you look for weaknesses and attack them until you get a piece ahead and then promote a pawn and win the endgame etc.

I don't understand his explaination of imbalances and why they would benefit me. They change all the time. I guess I didn't get it. I don't understand.

Isn't the whole idea of the game to get their pieces out of the way in such a way that you have more pieces to force a pawn promotion back to a queen to win? Quick checkmates mean that one player blundered terribly. We can't count on that can we?

The problem is you don't see the game as a unified harmonious whole you view it as a seperate parts.

When you see the game in a unified way everything will be clear.

How do you see it as a whole? You have the opening, middle, and end. In between there are a series of many different positions each unique to itself.

I just found this article. Do you agree with it?

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/chess/planning.html

I know with all the free instruction available on the web that people are loathe to pay for it, but Silman is all over ChessMentor.  He has over a dozen courses with close to a thousand individual lessons including a 300 lesson monster on "the roots of positional understanding".  Why not bump your membersjip up to diamond, even if it is just for a trial month, and see if it is for you.  I personally find it much easier to learn from than books.

I might. I find online instruction much easier than books as well. Plus books are expensive. It's around $20.00 for a Silman book.