Thought Process

It seems like every Knight Errant or chlogger (chess-blogger) has written about the need to come up with a thought process or the need to improve his or her thought process. Today is the day for me to post about my need to improve my thought process.

My streak of OCL losses is proof perfect that I need to improve in this area.

I just finished reading Heisman's Novice Nook entitled A Generic Thought Process for the hundreth time. I swear my head's made of wood because whenever I learn something, it usually takes several repetitions before the concept enters my thick skull. I'm hoping this time it'll stick for good.

For my own reference, I'm posting the generic steps. From there, I need to practice, practice, practice this process until it enters my subconcious.

For non-check scenarios, this is what I need to go through:

1. 1. Is there a sequence of moves that leads to a mate? If not, proceed to the next step.
   
2. 2. How did his move change the situation? What are his threats?
   
3. 3. Begin list of candidate moves.
   
   A. Meet opponent's threats
   
   
   B. Carry out my threats
   
   
   C. Create new threats that cannot be met or that improve my position
   
   
   D. Improve my piece activity
   
   
   E. Improve my position
   
   
   This is where the famous quote applies ... if you find a move, find a better one.
   
   
4. 4. For each candidate move, do the 3-ply ... my move, his move and my move
   
5. 5. Decide on the best candidate move, do a sanity check and move.

In the article, Dan says, "during the game give your best effort every move; you might as well just resign if you are losing and don't want to try any more." He then mentioned the Theory of Infinite Resistance which basically means make life as tough as possible for you opponent, even if he is winning, because you never know what will actually happen.

This will be my standard.