What do super GMs see?

from kasparov's lecture:-

on human intuition:-

"It is just there, and if you are not born with it, no training could build it."

oops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hf31xOhchY

He also talks about intuition and calculation, which of course are very different things.

He also said this same day: "It was an amazing combination of human intuition, determination and calculation that helped me to create a really beautiful game" 

Intuition does not come for free... I can imagine 7yr old Kasparov working through 20 master games a day at the Botvinik school and doing homework for another 10games, getting whipped in the morning by the old master for getting his homeowrk wrong, spending 12hrs a day on chess, 6days a week, so that by the time the kid is 14yrs he has analysed and/or played more than 50,000 games and a few hundred thousand positions, some of which occur over and over until they are part nature to him, so he can basically "feel" the position he has seen it before many many times.

If you add a natural ability (he was probably 1700 at age 7yrs) you can see that this is no ordinary thing, he will easily be playing at 2400 at 14yrs. My point is that intuition isn't free.

i doubt he sees only 15 moves ahead. i was going through an annotated game of anand and he says 'this is an interesting position. i had to calculate. but the whole tree of variations is so dense that i will give only the basic variations here.' then he fills up two pages of these 'basic variations'.

if you go through any game of informator, you will often see varations A) B) B1..B12 .. B121 B1211. I have seen as much as B12111). And this is the 'average' GM

Since you are also a diamond member, take a look at these videos, if you haven't watched them yet. He talks about Fischer's mindboggling calculation power. 

Greatest Chess Minds: Bobby Fischer Part 1

• by GM Roman Dzindzichashvili

I see what you mean. The thing is they sometimes are not 100% sure the line they like is winning, they see it afterwards. Of course I'm just a patzer, some professional advice would be very helpful. I bet WGM Pogonina knows the right answer but she probably missed the question.

She did answer it, see previous page. 

Yes she did, but I would like her to be more specific, not just "many moves ahead", if you catch my drift.

aetherldred, if you are interested in these kinds of questions, i highly recommend two books

A) Move First, Think Later-Willy Hendriks

B) Chess For Zebras-Jonathon Rowson

I wonder what WGM Pogonina thinks of these books as it would be great to hear her views since it is so rare for her to make an appearance here.

Thanks :)

Just to make sure everybody knows this.

15 forced moves involves 30 ply with only one move that needs to be seen at each ply; that involves "seeing" 30 moves.

15 moves with an average of 3 candidate  moves per ply (I made up this number) = (30 plys x 3)! 90! which is 90X89x88... I don't have a good calculator or the inclination to work this out, but it should be clear that nobody can see the entire game beforce playing it.

Lets say the amature has to look 4 moves deep at an average of 3 Candidate  a ply; is 24! The master, on the other hand, has the experiance to only have to look at an average of 2 canidaites a ply, 16! still an astronumical 2.09*10^13 (I think I wrote that in scientific notation correctly, but I have not used scientific notation since high school). Now let's say the IM has it down to 1.5 canidiates a ply, 6! 720 moves. The GM has it down to 1 canidiate a move, 4! (which, quite fitingly is the only mathamical calculation I can do in my head) 24.

The GM is able to determine the salient features of the position, and plot a course of action. They know what's important, and they go after it. The rest of us don't have that level of understanding.

Go and read her articles.

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/335394862s-tournaments-club anyone wanna join...

Stop spamming.

She talks about it on Pogonina vs chess.com. Basically she says you can calculate up to 15 moves ahead if you want, but you cannot be 100% sure of all of them.

Thanks for the suggestion, it was a good one.

And there are other titled players here that give out good articles too, don't forget them too. 

Without an evaluation function of some kind, a computer wouldn't be able to calculate at all. It has to assign a value to a move in order to decide if it is better than another move. Maybe what you had in mind was material rather than positional value?