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I have ADHD and when I played classical OTB chess, I had a pretty significant checklist. This crashes and burns in fast time controls.
1. Is this still theory. If so, what am I supposed to do again?
2. What is my opponent trying to do with that last move. What is their plan. Where can their pieces go and do they put me in danger. Especially double check where knight can go with two moves because those little devils can be tricksy. Is this setting up some kind of tactic that I'm afraid of?
3. If I don't already have a plan, I try to come up with one. If I do have a plan, is it still a good one? Did that last move change my plan? How do I make my plan happen?
4. Look at every one of your opponent's pieces one by one. Are there any weak squares that I can exploit. Are there any backwards pawns or pieces that are either hanging or weakly defended that I can exploit. If so, how do I make that happen? If I could magically move my pieces some place on the board, where would that be? Can I get them there, and if so, how?
5. What are my candidate moves? How do they best serve my plan. What are the upsides/downsides of each move.
6. Did I miss any tactics that I could make work? Do a spot check for possible tactics including any piece sacrifices that might work. Look especially hard at the king and queen to see if maybe they might be vulnerable.
7. Decide upon a move.... then double check to see that it's not hanging anything and is not susceptible to any tactics.
8. Stop. Don't move. Go through the checklist again.
9. Stop. Don't move. Go through the checklist again.
10. Move
This works really well in bullet chess.... just kidding.
In scholastic chess, I was the kid that used up all their time while everyone else was done in 20 minutes. Some kids hated this and sometimes called me the Human Time Machine. Needless to say, this list less practical as time controls get shorter and shorter, but it's very useful in long format games. I forced myself to do this even if the move was obvious, because as I said, I have ADHD, and am incapable of visualizing the board. If I didn't I would forget where my pieces were and hang my queen... which I do routinely in short time controls.
My own mental checklist is very short so this was very helpful, thanks!