What is average depth human is searching in online chess?

I just want to know how far players go while they play here.

correctly and thoroughly? I would guess less than 1 ply on average.

Less than 1 ? :O Do you know what depth means?

Thanks :)

I always thought we are searching for many moves, I look for two - three moves (which i think they are good) and then go at about 15-20 moves ahead so I was kinda surprised when you said one :D

On a related note, this is another benefit to being really good with tactics. You can quickly "reject" or prune candidate moves as not tactically feasible.  This also has me believing that the titled players don't feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities "that I have to look at , analyze etc. " like the club players do.

Yes. Do you know what correctly and thoroughly mean?

I would venture to guess that across all chess players, most will either a) overlook at least one possible move or b) dismiss a candidate move for the wrong reason.

Keep in mind that most people who take up chess never get any good at it (I include myself in this group). So an average over all chess players will skew pretty heavily toward the low end. I personally feel that I frequently overlook potential moves. I have read experienced chess teachers that say looking widely is a much bigger problem for novices than looking deeply.

People tend to be obsessed with how far ahead calculations go, but it seems to me that most calculations go wrong before they go deep.

+1

 15-20 moves ahead.. I hope that doesn't begin at openings already..

Just out of curiosity: Do you only analyse pretty much forced (or by far best) moves calculate so far ahead, or do you even incorporate different variations within those 15-20 moves??

On average the search depth is minus 1 ply -

the average chess.com player only looks at the last move played by the opponent.

On average turn-based players examine one-fifteenth of the possibilities to a depth of 1.009823 ply.

I am a bit confused here.. What is exactly 1 ply??

One point for the OP to be clear about ... there is no fixed magical "ply" number but playing "tactically safe" moves all throughout the game necessitates about an average 3-ply of "looking" in certain analytical positions (positions with more than 1-2 forcing moves such as checks/captures/threats ) which do occur from time to time!

In other words => it would be wise to look at all of the opponent's forcing replies (if they exist) in response to his "planned" move and then analyze (to quiescence) how he will respond (about 3-5 ply in most analytical positions) to see if his planned move is  safe enough to actually play.  

Granted this may a tiny subset of all possible moves and probably take no longer than 1-2 minutes to do cleanly in most positions.

The strong players out there do this automatically, I'd imagine. The weaker ones (yours truly is no exception) can and must train themselves to follow this thought process in order to play safe chess. 

(NM Dan Heisman calls this the difference between "real chess" and "hope" chess)

15-20 moves ahead, now you can´t be serious or can you really do that?

If so I´m really impressed..

1/2 move; the move of one of the two players.

1.e4 = one ply

1.e4 c6 = two ply, one evil.

In an OTB game once, I calculated every reasonable variation nine moves deep (18 ply). I remember the game well because calculating that deep is rare.

I don't think there is a constant average of "moves ahead" that people here are calculating.  I think it is best described by the following function f(x):

f(x)= 1/b; where b= the number of beers consumed prior to the move in question.

 :P     f(x) = 1/b -a where a is '1000 braincells that didn't survive last weeks' consumption of beer;)

Does it matter whether it is low voltage common lager or a high-end craft brew?

What about whiskey and whisky? Does the proof effect the equation?

this has just become something close to publishable in like a peer reviewed quantitative cognitive studies journal.