The thinking process in chess: How I think at the board and during practice

In chess the thinking process is crucial and therefore you should invest some time to get to know how you think. All the way from world champions to beginners we all think in different ways. And mainly there are two ways you can think: The first metod using logical thinking, weighing the positions pluses and minuses to get to a conclusion. The second way is to use your intuition and get a feeling about the position, a certain move or plan to play. Capablanca, the 3^th world champion was a great practitioner of the using the intuition. He always knew where to place the pieces and often didn’t have to calculate long variations. Alekhine, the 4^th world champion, was quite the opposite. He had a different style were he often calculated long variations and made conclusions based on these calculations. Actually, Alekhine used this factor against Capablanca in their world championship match often striving for rook endings were a lot of calculation was required and intuition became less important. And nevertheless, Alekhine became world champion! But that’s not to say that using your intuition is bad, it’s simply another way of thinking. Personally, I prefer the intuition method because relying on my subconscious to make decisions for me during play will often save me a lot of energy which could be needed later in the game. As we know, a game can last up to 5-6 hours :-).

 Here’s an example of using the intution from a game of mine:

White to move

Black has just played
16…a4 here and I was in for a long think. As time got by I couldn’t find a satisfactory move for white. With time pressure came stress and somewhat desperate I made the move
17.cxd! When I executed this move I must say I didn’t see the fine idea behind it. But as my opponent started to think for a longer and longer period I actually started to ask the question: “What’s taking him so long?” And then I found it! On the most natural move 17…cxd white has 18.Qb5 winning a piece because both e8 and b4 is hanging. Also, 17…Nxd5 is bad because (not of 18.Bxd5 cxd 19.Qb5 which can be meet by Qb6+!) of  18.Ne4! and white has the upperhand because of the doubled c-pawns and the strong outpost on e4. Instead my opponent played
17…Bxd2 and I won a pawn but not the whole game, which later ended in a draw. That’s the way I think during real play. Of course I do some calculation but in the end I try to get a feel if I should play the move or not.

During practice I usually prefer the other method. Because when it comes to practice it’s very good to break down the position and really look at what is going on consciously. By this I don’t mean just writing in your chessbase file something like: “Better play for white” or “Small advantage for black” but really breaking the position down and look at what’s causing white/black to have better play here. And once again to illustrate this point we are going to take a look at a position:

Black to move

A few years ago I remembered reading through the book “Easy guide to the Ruz Lopez” by John Emms and I can also recall that the variation ended with “15.Qd3 with a small plus for white”. That’s the kind of comment that should get you start thinking! Why does white enjoy a small plus in this position?
And then you start to consciously weighting pluses and minuses for both side hopefully coming to some kind of a conclusion. Well, white does has more space in the center controlling both c5,d5,e5 and f5.White has only 2 pawn islands versus blacks 3. All white pieces are developed; stand on good squares as well and soon white might be able to play e5 favorably. On the other side though, black has the bishop pair and if the position will be opened up the two bishops can become very strong.

In this way you think about the position and make a conclusion of who you think stand better. My experience doing this is that your understanding of the position increases and that you might be able to use the same conclusion on a similar position. That is really the good thing of pointing out all advantages and disadvantages. The next time you do it will become easier and next time even easier until the day you know it all by heart and the first thing you see in a position is the nice outpost, the rook occupying the seventh rank or the lead in development.

Most chess players do not single minded just use only logical thinking or their intuition. It’s a mixture of both but some tend to use logical conclusions more and others intuition more. I myself use mostly my intuition and in second hand logical thinking. But like I said in the beginning every player is different!