Thinking processes

I came up with a thinking process to use during a chess game and I decided to share it publicly because 1) It's the system I currently use and if there's any improvement I can make I would like to know and 2) It might help someone who doesn't know how to organize their thoughts during a game of chess. This is a system that I use to find the best move for any given position. If you have any thoughts or questions, just comment below. Here it is:

1) What is my opponent's plan? 

Check out your opponent's last move and examine the strategic features of his position. Determine what his plan and keep that in mind while you work on step 2.

2) What's my plan?

Do the same examination of your position that you did of his position on your own. Once that is done, come up with a good plan that you would like to execute. Is it to carry out some of the advantages latent in your position? Is it just to sit tight and hold out until an endgame? Is it to prevent your opponent from trying to execute his plan? Now is the time to figure this out.

3) What are my candidate moves?

With your strategic plan in mind, now your job is to find moves that support your plan. Use tactics if necessary. In fact, you can use this time to look for tactics in your favor. But the main focus of this part is to look for candidate moves, not just tactics, because sometimes there aren't any.

4) What's my opponent's next response?

Now's the time to falsify any of the candidate moves you made. Search for your opponent's next response. Can he reply with a tactic? Can he just push foward with his plan? Do this for all your candidate moves until one of three things happen:

1. You have one move left: Just play it!

2. You have more than one move left: Pick the one that you feel most benefits your position. It may take a second or two, but you need to find the very best move you can play!

3. You have no moves left: Go back to step 3 and find more moves, once you have moves, you can come back to step 4.

This, I feel, is a pretty darn good thinking system for finding the best move in a game. There's one flaw I see with it: There's nothing to do while it's your opponent's move. If you know how to fix that, please let me know! I would really appreciate that.

Have an awesome day :)

Don't you think you should try out your radical new system for at least a couple of days/weeks/months before you go around recommending it to innocent bystanders?

Why don't you come back in a month and show us how all your ratings have done?

Or you run out of time...

The main idea of me posting this is to get some feedback on if people of higher rating (such as yourself) so that I might improve upon it.

If your time runs low, I would imagine that you might make a move soon even if you haven't calculated all the moves thoroughly. Thanks for the feedback 

EDIT: Also, if you keep calculating moves until you run out of time and can't find a good one, i'd imagine you're in losing position anyway.

This is general enough that it doesn't risk being incorrect -- you captured the key ideas of looking at plans for both you and your opponent, and then looking at specific candidate moves for you and responses by your opponent.

But the devil is always in the details, and the specific processes you use to answer these four general questions is what you need to work on.   For example, do you know the key elements of developing a plan?  Once you have a plan, do you know how to find candidate moves and calculate them accurately?  

Where you are wrong though is your very last statement.  This type of broad thinking is exactly what you should do during your opponent's time, eg, look at the pawn structure, minor pieces, etc, to figure out the broader strategic ideas and identify plans for both sides.  During your time you should be thinking concretely about your opponent's last move -- what did my opponent's move threaten, how did the move help his plan, what weaknesses did it create, and do you need to modify your plan?  You should already know your broad plan (from the thinking you did during your opponent's time) and, once you have finished analyzing your opponent's last move, you can begin searching for candidate moves for yourself.    

The problem with a "thinking system" is that what works for some people won't work for others.  In particular, high-level players can see tactics instantly and with both eyes closed, so they don't need an explicit checklist of things like "are any of my pieces under attack?" .    Beginner players, on the other hand, will tend to get your step #1 wrong so often that it's not a good use of their time - they can't see the board well enough to formulate a decent plan of their own, never mind envision what their opponent is thinking.   If they can go eight moves in a row without hanging a piece, they'll win, so that's all they need to plan for.

Any system that tries to be reasonably complete will eat up loads and loads of time.  

The way to improve is to prioritize.  Pick a handful of things that you need to work on, and check those all the time.  Plus, one or two extra things to think about in each of: opening, midgame, endgame.

What you list are pretty good things to think about for mid-level players like us.  Finding a good plan and finding a good way to implement it are things I struggle with, in the opening and especially in a crowded midgame. 

If you're not thinking when it's your opponent's move, you're wasting half your available time.  *Always* be looking for tactics, weak spots, pieces that could be improved, and candidate moves, both your own and your opponent's.   If you're following your plan at all well, then your opponent's actual move should rarely come as a surprise, and if it is a surprise, it should be because it's a clearly bad move.

Note that as phrased, your instructions for step 4 are inconsistent:  if you eliminate bad moves until there is one move left, then play it (4.1), you will never reach 4.3.

YOu would be wrong if you think higher rated players don't have a 'thinking system'. Granted, a lot of what us lower rated players have to think about has become automatic for them, but they still have their own process. Why do you think they still take a long time to move in long games?

I probably should clarify: you need to check that move as well BEFORE you play it.

Thanks for the feedback! That makes quite a lot of sense, thanks :)

"   Beginner players, on the other hand, will tend to get your step #1 wrong so often that it's not a good use of their time - they can't see the board well enough to formulate a decent plan of their own, never mind envision what their opponent is thinking.   If they can go eight moves in a row without hanging a piece, they'll win, so that's all they need to plan for."

The above game would disagree.  White demonstrated a knowledge of attacking and positional principles and implemented them in his plan.  From this thread:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/first-game-posted-for-comments2

He didn't ignore his opponent's plan in the very first moves (albeit in a misguided way) and his opponent was all over the place weakening his own position. 

According to me you should never analyze the position, simply rely on your intuition.

I've read of similar ideas in Purdy's "Guide to Good Chess" as well as in other books.  Purdy's suggestion for what to do when it isn't your move is to   examine each piece's position on the board and consider it's role in the game.  If you can't find a plan then consider improving the position of your worst placed piece.

I believe this earlier post already addressed much of this question:

Why is why the most important question to ask in chess positions?
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/why-is-why-the-most-important-question-to-ask-in-chess-positions