What are 3 questions when an opponent makes a move should you be asking yourself? What are 5 Questions you should consider when making a move? I'd love to hear people's opinions on these questions.
How will this help my in future moves?
I hope these were good questions... 
What are 3 questions when an opponent makes a move should you be asking yourself? What are 5 Questions you should consider when making a move? I'd love to hear people's opinions on these questions.
What is he planning to do?
Where will he move next?
How will it affect my plan?
Very nice I will start using these questions!! THANKS ... My biggest problem is for the past 5 years all I been asking myself is, where is my next tactic at! Problem is when you look for tactics you lose the positional play and weaken my position to push for a tactic that may or may never happen. Leads me to a lot of losses. I Want to work on my position play for a bit and try to toughen up my defenses.
I want to come up with some too.
What are 3 questions when an opponent makes a move should you be asking yourself?
1. What are all the captures, checks, and threats I can play?
2. What are all the squares his last move attacks and leaves undefended? (This includes attacks by pieces it uncovers). Basically noticing all the immediate surface level changes to the position.
3. What does my opponent hope to accomplish?
What are 5 Questions you should consider when making a move?
1. What are all the captures, checks, and threats my opponent can play in response to my candidate move?
2. What if my opponent captures the piece I move? (This is the one people usually check)
3. What if my opponent defends the square / piece I'm attacking? (This one lower rated players don't check so much)
4. What if my opponent retreats or otherwise moves the piece I'm attacking? (Usually overlooked by lower rated players)
5. What if my opponent completely ignores my move and does something completely unrelated, maybe even on the other side of the board (Often overlooked by lower rated players).
What these help remind you is your opponent isn't obligated to go along with your plan. They're not going to capture or defend if that makes it easy on you. They're going to look for the most annoying move to mess up your plans.
Having said that, for newer players it's an accomplishment to find a reason to like a move. Finding a likable move may take a lot of time and energy. These are the questions you ask when you're already pretty good at finding reasons to like a move and you're ready to start giving at least equal time and energy to finding out why your intended move might be bad. Trying to falsify your move.
I've literally asked myself questions like this during tournament games 
When the concepts are new to you, you're almost forced to think about them consciously (whether through asking yourself questions or some other way).
But sure, ideally you do these sorts of things automatically.
No one plays chess by asking a list of questions, or going through some kind of rigid Kotov-ian process for each move.
But I think you guys misunderstand the question. Beginners ask this sort of thing to get a window into the mind of a stronger player.
Like Kasparov said in his youth, he had the habit of dividing the board into two, down the middle, and checking if one player's pieces outnumbered the opponent's on one side. This would obviously be a precursor to a successful kingside attack for example.
What are 3 questions when an opponent makes a move should you be asking yourself? What are 5 Questions you should consider when making a move? I'd love to hear people's opinions on these questions.
Pre Move Checklist:
Think of it this way. Is it easier to achieve a rating of 2000 if you're often playing with and talking to strong players (players over 2000)?
Or is it easier if you never leave your house, never even look at games of other players, you just play yourself and the computer waiting for something inexplicable to click on in your unconscious.
I completely agree you can't export a thought process, but by hearing about how others describe their process, beginners can keep those things in mind while they play. If it's not useful for them, they'll forget it. Bits they find useful, they'll keep and make their own. The point isn't to copy the strong player, but to use their experience to your advantage.
I also agree practice and the processes we're aware of only takes a person so far... as someone who didn't start chess until 18, and even then didn't go to my first tournament until age 21 I'm aware that my progress was slow because I had to consciously work for what I got. No sudden 200 points leaps for me, I was too old. So I acknowledge work is only part of it, but practice and immersion is necessary to fuel (so to speak) the sudden leaps in ability.
So I'm just saying these are tools, not a magic pill. We both agree the 10,000 hour nonsense is laughable even at a glance. There is no magic formula, but there are tools (like work and hearing from others) that helps facilitate the growing process.
Haha, ok, I see what you mean.
I do get the feeling often times that annotations are more the player talking to himself, reaffirming their own beliefs, than actually saying something useful.
But then every once in a while, you inexplicably gain something actually useful, which is the insight behind the words that made them possible in the first place. Like Karpov's evaluation on move 10 was probably fairly useless, but the idea of treating the opening or early mid game like an ending and thinking schematically opens a whole new world.
So I'll say that if I ever come off like your buddies who are more pompous than Kasparov and Fischer combined, then I apologize
As I've said before, when I first became interested in chess, I knew zero people who played. I tried to ask people questions on yahoo chess, but you can imagine how useless that was. So my natural love of trying to teach things is only enhanced by vicariously being excited at beginners who can get their questions answered better than I ever could.
OH my thankyou everyone for your wonderful insight.
Oh my just got done reading all the post. Well, the reason I asked this question was for learning only, not something I would take into tournament or that kinda thing. I am actually wanting questions to help me understand positional play a lot better because that is my down side usually! Questions to me spur active thought rather than just looking for a tactic when there may not be if best moves are played.
I am actually wanting questions to help me understand positional play a lot better because that is my down side usually!
The fundamental element of positional play is mobility. You can also think of it as how many empty squares a piece influences.
Why is a queen worth the most? Her attack and defense are the same as a pawn right? She can only capture one thing at a time. The queen is more valuable though because her potential to attack and defend important places is higher. She can even attack and defend multiple things at once in a way a pawn never will.
So first of all it's about mobility.
One useful question to ask yourself during a middlegame is which of your minor pieces is the worst, and then work to improve that piece. This question may seem strange if you think of all knights and bishops as being worth 3, but now you already have an idea that a knight in the corner, which controls only 2 squares, is not as good as a knight in the center, which controls 8.
Ok, so here's a list I made for the rough levels of piece value. This also gives you an idea of how a game progresses.
Level 0: Your piece is obstructing friendly pieces. In the diagram below both players want to move their knights. White's rook would have the open b file, and black's bishop would have the long open diagonal.
Level 1: Centralized and/or controlling many squares. In the diagram below white's knights are good. Black's are not.
Why is a centralized or mobile piece considered good if it's just hitting a lot of empty squares? The point is it will have greater chances to get to level 2 or 3. It's just a means to an end.
Level 2: Infiltration. The term infiltration means to post your piece in the opponent's territory. Here it may automatically be level 3.
In the diagram below, the star of the position is white's d5 knight. It's in black's territory and even though it's not participating in a mating attack, or threatening any weak pawns, it's taking squares away from black's pieces, and because it's in black's camp, it has a high chance of becoming level 3 later.
Level 3: Attacking or defending a vital point. Often this means the enemy king or a weak pawn that can't move.
The quintessential example of this is rooks on the 7th rank (for white) or 2nd rank (for black)
Well, there's equal, better, and winning. After winning you start a new game
WOW thankyou that was so helpful Farmhand. I will start using this in my play.
When my opponant makes a move, I ask:
1. Is he threatening check or checkmate?
2. Is he attacking my Q or R or a minor piece?
3. What is his line? strategy etc.?
i have a problem when i am playing chess and it is that i dont know what to aim for, eating enemy pieces or try to find a weakness to checkmate him, usually when i focus on checking mate him i lose pieces and the plan dont work what should i do about this
why are chess guys so broke lol
What are 3 questions when an opponent makes a move should you be asking yourself? What are 5 Questions you should consider when making a move? I'd love to hear people's opinions on these questions.