There is no plan, only planning.
Submitted by
on Sat, 09/26/2009 at 8:07pm.
I want to improve my teaching and strengthen my own playing these days--I just got offered a job-- I may be teaching chess in elementary schools starting this semester! Just sharing the good news.
This is a new draft on how I approach the concept of planning in chess.
a complete strategical success for a chess game depends on a player's strength right? What can I help my students do to get stronger? I can show them patterns, teach them concepts, rules and exceptions, sure. Is there anything else? Maybe I can teach them how to plan ahead! They'll have to understand what planning is and isn't so that they know how to work on it. This is my second draft/blog on planning. If anyone read my first one (which is gone I believe), you'll be relieved. This one is about 1/4th the length!
Again, chess strength can be split into areas such as knowledge of superior concepts and methods, ability to visualize and calculate, and what I'd like to discuss: effective planning. You can only make one army's moves in chess, so knowing ideas is good, but experience and skill implementing them is also needed.
Consider the hypothetical scenario: two players,twin boys, know identical openings, ideas and strategical concepts, tactics, etc. They calculate equally well. One twin, however, respects the other's ability less than his is respected by his brother, but only because of nothing more than a statistical anomaly (a lucky winning streak): he happened to win every game they played when they were learning. They haven't played eachother since. Who's going to win? It's still anyone's guess, but I'd put my money on the equally talented twin that respects his twin's ability... Not because of the law of averages dictates it's his "turn", but because when planning, he won't get that little devil on his shoulder that says "set a trap--he'll fall for it". He'll be looking at the position, not the player. Respect for one's chances of even accidentally making good moves is a virtue when planning in chess!
What is planning? I've read a lot on planning and positional play from many authors. Heck, I'm actually Nashville Chess Center's librarian. Agreement on the definition of a "plan" and what a plan consists of can cause arguments and be generally difficult. The reader may recall many chess authors' historical dispute on the definition and nature of a combination. This is of a similar nature. Romanowsky's Middlegame, for example, is a must read. It will provide students with several ideas and insights on planning, and that's great. Still, one would expect an accurate, concise definition of a chess plan would be easy to come by--but you won't get it in this book. Even the best authors and teachers fail at this task, however. It's inevitably vague. It has to be... because "it" --the plan you're looking for--doesn't exist.
I can see that could be confusing. I was an English major, so I probably pay more attention to word properties than the average player. Contradictions, ambiguity, etc rarely escape my interest. The problem of chess terms was intriguing to me, but I finally came to a conclusion: like other words, certain concepts shouldn't be put in noun form. It's easy to define what "jogging" is. One knows when they are jogging :) Now try defining what constitutes a "jog" and it suddenly becomes a difficult if subjective task. Some will argue that it depends on the specifics. What was the pace of the person running? For how long in time and mileage did he or she run? Was the so-called "jog" intentional or was the person simply traveling fast by accident?
Planning in chess is such a subject. It's a process and an action to be performed. It can be done well or poorly. The mix up is due to the mostly unnoticed interchange of the words "plan" and "strategy". These are two different things. There is objectively no such thing as a plan, only planning, because a planning is one player's process in one position. It is dictated by the conditions and moves one is dealing with on the other side of the board.
Planning (in a nutshell) is the process in which one decides what to play and when. If one has an idea or has learned a strategical concept that requires several moves, they're planning when they decide what order they should play those moves in. Maybe they're choosing between strategies. Maybe the strategical operation has a well-known or necessary order in which one executes the moves--still, that's only one player. If one is also visualizing the opponent's moves, they are planning! If you aren't considering the opponent's moves, you won't likely succeed. Romanowsky said that it was difficult to convey what a plan is, yet everyone knows playing without planning won't succeed against difficult opposition. If you aren't looking at both players' ideas to some extent (you usually are when you have more than 10 second until flagging), you're going to miss threats, opponent mistakes, and you won't notice/execute prophylactic measures that you should have found. What good is winning a pawn if you don't stop decisive material loss, checkmate, or anything else that outweighs the gains of your otherwise well-executed strategy?
The "concise" definition: Planning is the process in which a player chooses the most effective move order to implement an idea or ideas based on the concrete situation that they can't control. If there are good options on the table, a human (and probably not even an engine) can say what the "best" move is in any position within a reasonable time limit, so planning is a necessary process. In the end, a decision is made. The more questions asked and answered about the future, the more complex and perhaps correct the outcome will be. One can plan well today in one game, and poorly in the next. Planning itself is a skill that can be strengthened and described.
Risky planning would be a player deciding that his/her opponent won't play a move that makes the last move(s) less worthy than others or even completely worthless. If he/she is correct, there are benefits. If not, repercussions. Defensive planning is a player choosing moves based more on the preventing an opponent's strategy than on one's own attacking possibilities. The list goes on.
When planning we'll get an idea of how to and how not to execute an overall strategy (as in convert an endgame) or a number of smaller strategical operations as in the grand strategy of restraining and attacking a weak unit). The latter example is a good one since within it are several operational steps. We use the idea against a weak enemy pawn -- we place an avaiable piece in front of the pawn as close as possible, ideally on the square directly in front of the pawn, defend the piece enough times so that a pawn won't have to occupy the blockading point and block our own frontal attack. If needed, we replace the blockader with one more suited (it's well known that knights are good, maybe even best, if it's an isolated center pawn or hanging duo). Once blockaded, we perform another operation, concentrating forces on the weakness. Planning well both helps us find exceptions to the known guidelines and keeps asking the questions which will reveal better options, should they become avaiable. A dogmatic approach with only natural moves may not necessarily be the strongest one.
I've got a planning method to choose strong moves that I'll share. I call it evaluate and execute. If enough questions are asked, our planning process will choose a stronger move (see bronstein's quote below).
Do all of the following when faced with important choices:
Consult your intuition and knowledge of principles to make a list of possibilites. You should consider both complex operations and single moves that acquire strengths or give your opponent weaknesses. After all, an opponents weakness is considered an advantage that you have. Remember your first impression: what the board 'wants' to be played and what you 'guess'. You might not understand why you want to play it them but it would be wrong to ignore your healthy impulses. List these candidate moves on intuition and observation so that you remember the reasoning for the moves, but don't analyse the continuations--do this all as quick as possible.
Next, Identify who is better and worse (in various areas and overall) by evaluating the position on elements alone. Everyone has their own way of doing this-- one of my evaluation techniques is below (the numeric description of elemental pluses and minuses). Then, decide who has the overall advantage. Try to weigh assets and liabilities by their importance (to the best of your ability) so that you know how where to dig and where to get the most out of strengths or how to restrict the enemy from imposing their will upon you. This will assist in ideas for how to defend and attack weaknesses with the least amount of risk and/or effort. After evaulation, try to abstractly describe how assets might be transformed into more effective, simpler, or more threatining ones. Describe how any weaknesses can be made more defensible or accesable. Can your weakness or strength be leveraged or sacrificed for compensation in the form of stronger (even if dynamic) assets? These questions and concepts will ease your decision making. Always try to respect and understand the "spirit of the position" by the style of ches being played. Is it classical, hypermodern,etc?
This will help you find moves, but will easily help you discard the types of moves you want to avoid, such as blunders or losses of tempi.
Next, Play in an unbiased way for your opponent in your head. Use your knowledge, intuition and instinct here as well. Try to "win" from their perspecive.. in your mind. Try to be themaic--you need an unbiased description of expectations (what they could, what they should do.) You should however Pay attention to every change the recent moves make ...
in the position, ask if the move is good or is a mistake. Try to predict any blunders and threats. that you can prevent by playing for the gains you already have in mind. This will make you notice possibilites to prevent your opponents strong ideas by executing your own.
Synthesize the information and identify working, updated candidate moves and ideas that respect your mortality and aren't afraid to go with your gut. That's what planning is--looking for an effective way to secure chances of success by implementing your will on the game-- now and in future positions. When choosing the absolute best idea, I always repeat the wisdom that Bronstein wrote in The Modern Chess Self Tutor:
The strength of a move lies in its economic simplicity!
Double check your variations and calcultate the best choice.
imbalances:
Evaluating the position on basic chess elements
I'll do this for a real position I posted a snippit in. it refers to a position in a group game
here's a diagram of the the corresponding game i'm looking into
force is equal for the time being, butsince the pawn structure favors black, we can expect to gain ascendency here or by endgame promotion. +1
material quality is not imbalanced (no bishop vs knight or exchange sacrifices have been played...yet). We should note that queen and knight attacking together will favor the attacking side and create a temporary imbalance.
pawn structure, favors black +1
space and control (activity) is almost equal. White has a temporary plus for now, but Black has chances for a more active king in the ending. White has chances for active rooks due to half open files, offset in a way by our attacking pressure due to weaknesses on the c file. As stated, Queen and knight team are a versatile attacking regiment, so white has more kingside attacking chances due to color complex and our pinned knight. since temporarily we cant move the knight and have only one file to occupy, we can say that the piece activity is potentially an asset to white** -.5 pending simplification. (.50)
statics are in black's favor. White's space advantage is not a static plus because the two black center pawns will eventually advance. in fact there are no pure open files to occupy. Black has two pawn islands, white has four which constitutes a static advantage and means that simplification is in black's favor so dynamics such as tension, initiative and complications are necessarily in white's favor**--especially when they can change the static situation. that's always the case for the worse position- the statically worse player needs to "mix it up". They have a pin, e, d and b file pressure, and our weak dark squares on the kingside to think about. without any clear lead in time, we can say that black is better in the statics and dynamics. +1(1.5)
Time (development) is on black's side since we've already deployed a rook. (Thanks for that vote earlier guys. ...e5 would have been a mess). We should make progress regardless of white's choices, but we've got a good start. +.5 (2.0)
King safety is dynamically better for white while the Queen and knight are on the board to attack the color complex, but the white's lack of luft appeals to our major pieces. Since they have plans on the c file, White's king is safer** which adds to the dynamic chances for white to creat dynamic equality if we are innaccurate. -.25
= (1.75)
Therefore on a scale of -5 (worse in regards) to 0 (equal) to 5 (better in all elements)--on my own "elemental" evaluation, we are +1.75
white isn't lost yet because there are no forcable simplifications, and the pinned knight on f6 is a source of tension. any good player can breakdown the sources of white's counterplay though--
**we can't allow g4-g5 while the knight is pinned.
**we shouldn't allow the e pawns duty of defending d6 to give it "backwardness". as in Re1 ...e6 Qxd6 or Rxd6
** we shouldnt allow a rook lift to assist in a king attack
** we shouldn't allow a knight or exchange sacrifice to split our structure via pin as in Ne4 or Ng4 takes Nf6 if the recapture is exf6 unless we leverage it for more gains.
"first impression--available strategical operations" --candidate ideas on intuition
1.Attacking of weak Queenside isolated pawn islands. There are 3 at a2 c2 and c4.
- mechanical blockade with Rc8-c5, preparing Rf8-c8
- direct attack with Qa5 Qa6 Qa4 or Qc5
- maneuver of Knight to a dark squared attacking post.
2. Consolidation of positional trumps, overprotection, improvements, and exchanges. Basically trying to get the evaluation "elemental" number up in positional ways.
- consolidate center pawns with the idea of activating pieces that would otherwise defend them. there are different methods- form a solid chain with ..e6 and ...d5
- . simply eliminating or restricting the c4 pawn by preparing ...d5 with pieces.
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overprotecting d6 while ...e6 is played, following with ...d5 but allowing cxd5 and recapturing. *taking back with a piece we gain a central outpost, although the 2nd c pawn might undermine it, probably not.*taking back with the e pawn isn't a goal. we gain an IQP, open e file and potential passer, but it's a static minus and is blockadable. it's therefore anti-positional.
- play b6 shutting down the b file and the diagonal g1-a7 on which the queen attacks a7. this is also a gain in activity (Nimzovitch: overprotection is a gain in activity for every defender of the strongpoint or pawn!) here shutting down the diagonal means the queen on a5 wont be commited defending a pawn.
- eliminate dark squares color complex, add more luft while covering knight invasion points at g5 and h6 by forming a duo with h7-h6.
That's the gist of the kinds of quetions you should ask and answer when planning, and so I'll stop there.
If anyone is wondering what the process led me to believe, answering the questions and planning accordingly (with many more questions etc) revealed the move
...Qc5! as strongest, although on first glance EVERYBODY including me wanted to play Rc5, which allowed the multipurpose dynamic move Nd2! from our opponent, defending c4 and enabling to alter the structure (beneficial to white) by Ne4 attacking the pinned Knight at f6 OR attacking the rook with Nb3 should it become tactically viable. Qc5 assisted *all* the strategies listed including blocking the diagonal to a7!
After not going after c4 and the queen, the knight defending from d2 combined with our knight being pinned makes it tough work to free and manuever for ...Nxc5. Other captures sack the exchange, right? It was forcing the issue (threatQxc4) in a way that Rc5 did not. It therefore was limiting of opponents options, most flexible, and used the strategy of simplification to our benefit.
I hope you got something out of this-- I did!