How to plan your game in chess?

I've never really been great at chess. I could beat beginner computer programs, but never the more advanced versions. I don't really understand the concept of planning ahead in chess. It seems really hard. Is it something that you can learn from a book? Or just does it come from playing the game repeatedly?|||There are many books which give you ideas for the basic elements of a plan, together with concrete suggestions in a limited number of positions. And most game 'collections' which are annotated by the player give an insight into the planning process.





As far as 'playing the game repeatedly' is concerned, some say there is no substitute for experience. My view is that life is too short to learn by trial and error from your own experiences, far better is to study the games of others and learn from theirs.





Choose a particular position from the opening, input the moves into an online database (at least 4 available, best of which is the chessbase site at http://www.chesslive.de/ ), and you will be presented with a collection of similar games: play through them, and you will get an idea of plans available from a particular starting position.





The main elements of a plan are


1.Pawn structure


2.Piece position


3.The center


4.King position and safety, and attack against the opposing king.





My idea of a plan is a sequence of moves relevant to the 4 points above, in which opponents moves are disregarded except for recaptures. Then you start to consider opposition plans and how he can intefere with yours. So you can regard the position as a 'white to mate in shortest time' and take it from there, but checkmate isn't necessary for a successful plan: even something as slight as giving your opponent a weakness such as 'doubled pawns' may be an objective which can gain victory in the long run.|||In short, playing the game repeatedly does help (especially to recognize patterns), however, if you really want to get better at the game (and at planning ahead), you should look at the vast amount of chess material published by the experts in the field.





There are many chess resources out there! You can learn from many books such as:





101 Chess Questions Answered (Steve Giddins) -- I would strongly recommend this one for beginners


Chess Catechism (Larry Evans)


Logical Chess Move by Move (Irving Chernev)


How to Beat Bobby Fischer (Edmar Mednis)


Chess Openings Theory and practice (I.A. Horowitz) -- a good book for openings


Pandolfini's Chess Challenges (Bruce Pandolfini) -- an excellent problem book





And these are to just mention a few! I also strongly recommend Chessmaster 9000 for your computer, as it has many instructive features. It has many drills, exercises, etc. for every kind of player (beginner to master), for all parts of the game (opening, middle, and end). I especially like the courses that it has taught by IM Josh Waitzkin. These courses include discussions on the psychology of competition and an educational endgame course. Chessmaster 9000 also has an extremely large database of master games and a library of annotated classic games.





Hope this helps,





~Kasparov vs. Karpov|||Practice, Practice, The books may help in very situational settings but playing long games against people who can beat you is the best way to learn. After you have many games under your belt you could try using one of the chess master games for playstation with move advice turned on under options. I play chess almost every day and hardly ever find people that can beat me more than one game, and that's normally when im just not paying attention anyway.





Some of the other answers you have received are actually more complicated than the game itself after you have played a lot.|||there IS some planning, like being able to see weak spots from your opponent and fixing your own weak spots. i like the following book


author : irving chernev


title : winning chess, how to see three moves ahead


being that you can already beat low level computer programs? im guessing your chess rating is 1000 (which isnt bad) but a little book knowledge wouldnt hurt you





(updated answer because i read the dragon-slayers review)...one day he compliments me? and the next day he criticizes me? odd? and i never even played him?...i never even mentioned MY chess rating ! ...i think he has something to prove, what it is im not exactly certain?|||planning is easy but moving the pieces at the game is hard especially thinking where to move. but my advice always move the pawn near the king forward then watch as your opponent move, after he moves , move your queen or bishop. thats the way i play.|||first we have to find out the steps of opponent there are 4d steps


when you take white follow these steps


1.e3


2.qf3


3.bc4


4.qf7


when you take blaks follow these steps


1.e6


2.qf6


3.bc5


4.qf2|||there's an old book called 'Your First Move:Chess for beginners' by Alexi Sokolsky.





It got me interested in Chess, it shows you how to plan all sorts of tricks and traps to bamboozle your opponent.|||Well, I was about to go to sleep, but it would just be against any chess-player's morals to leave a question like this with such terrible answers as Mark H's, the dude who suggested four moves, and that other guy whose answer I didn't really read.





Um, well, experience is definitly beneficial in every aspect. Just like... er, playing golf. (I hate golf, too) . You can get better at golf the more you play. And it's absolutely experience which will help you the most. But at the same time, there's books about how to correct your swing! (I seriously wanna punch the 'sport' of golf in the face, but I needed a mediocre analogy, and this did it.)





The Complete Book of Chess Strategy is fantastic! I only hope that's really what it's called, lol. It's by er... frick... uuuuuuuuummmmmmmmm... IM Jeremy Silman!!! I remembered, yay me! It's got some fantastic bits about chess openings! I learned a lot from it just sitting in Barnes and Noble bookstore reading it for a few minutes to kill time.





Of course, all books are different! As are all people! My favorite place to learn chess crap is Wikipedia.org! Very unexpected, I know... Kinda funny too, lol.





Are you using an actual opening? Or do you just make up your opening as you go? Here, lemme give you my favourite link in the world! It's to wikipedia's chess opening's page. It's called... Chess Openings. Very creative title. (sarcasm)





I typically would not give people links, for as you can see, I don't have a problem with typing insanely long answers, but it's 1 39am, and I have a chess tournament to leave for at 6am, so I really should start getting to sleep, but I couldn't leave your question hanging out there alone!





Alright, click the link, and check out some openings. I'll point you in the right direction, then you're on your own. The Nimzo-Indian is a fantastic response to 1.d4 (assuming you're playing as black). The Sicilian is the most famous chess opening for black that there is, so since over 90 percent of tournament adult players know it, it wouldn't hurt you to familiarize yourself with it. Opponents usually play along, too. The English Opening is one I liked for a while, but soon I realized I won more often with 1.e4 than 1.c4 (1.c4 is the English). The Collie, or colle... I'll try to find the spelling... hang on. Ah, it's spelled Colle but pronounced Collie. Or Kolly. It's pretty sweet.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Openi鈥?/a>





Alright, I'm gonna go play some chess against my computer and sleep. Don't listen to Mark H. He's insane. always ranting about chess ratings.





Be sure to click those links! Oh, you might check out the King's Indian Attack also.





Okay, okay, I'm shutting up now,


toodles





~John