Thinking process

As I mentioned before, I consider the thinking process the main key to improve in chess, this is why I "created" my own thinking process. What do you think of it? I am open to any ideas.





I am looking forward to your opinion.

Looks pretty good. You might have two processes, one on your move and the second during your opponent's move.

Other points you might consider under prepare thread:

Have I seen this position berfore?

Is the position settled? Who's better?

What are the positonal considerations, IQP? Hanging Pawns?, Piece out of play? etc.? How should I handle this type of position?

Thank you for your answer!!!!

It is nor clear in the mind map but the PREPARE part is the only one dedicated to the time when my opponent has to move. This is why the mind map starts whit UPDATE.

The others thing you say are represented under the subpart PLAN, and you are right, it needs another mind map to represent how to plan because it is here where knowledge and experience are very important, and we don't forget to remember that we need different planning for the opening, middlegame and ending.

Also it needs another one to be able to do it without getting in time trouble. I mistake I make it is try to play the best move in every position, this is not bad when I know the position since I have a plan, but when the position is not known, playing without a clear plan gets me in time trouble.

Another mistake I make it is to analyse without considering all moves available I see what I think is a good move and I start analysing it, this also gets me into time trouble.

For all of this I got to the conclusion that in order to improve my play the first thing I have to improve it is my thinking process. If I do it right I will be able to avoid time trouble and blunders, now my opponents will have to win me the game, no more gifts I hope.

And I drew all of this from ICS course!!!!!!!

Dan Heisman's trigger approach to time trouble is worth considering.

I think you are on to something here, Mind Mapping is a fantastic way to organize and study complex subjects like this. Look forward to see where this all goes!

Here it is!!!!



Untill now I have done these two mind maps and another one about training technique, I will post it if you find it interesting.

The original might be better in a linear format rather than the map format. I assume you don't do them in random order....

My thought process can be found at:
http://kingassassins.50webs.com/CP.3.pdf

Five steps
1) Threat scan: look for threats.
2) Planning: evaluate the position to generate plans and candidate moves.
3) Analyze: consider the consequences of each candidate move and select the candidate with the best consequences.
4) Blundercheck: Quickly check for one-move disasters.
5) Move

Very nice and interesting. I like the circularity because it somehow indicates that this an iterative proces not a proces which you go through step by step on each move - did you use Ostmans “Your best move: A structured approch to move selection” for the basic structure?
I agree that working with the thinking proces must be a key to improvement. I like the idea to incorporate Forcing moves as independent step in creation of candidate list and after this move on to positional moves but how do we incorporate search after tactical patterns and searh after structural patterns? Most candidate moves won’t give you instant forcing wins or instant positional advantage but rather will pose problems for your opponent to solve. The basis of this is to a large degree knowledge of these patterns/structures.
Prepare: I don’t like the “Find an object to attack” – rather the important thing to work on here must be to a large degree be preparation of the “To-do-list” as described in the ICS-course.
The link between Prepare and Create candidate list/Analyse candidate list? Maybe it in the Prepare-step you should emphazise the search for - and evaluation of - structural- and tactical patterns?

This mind map helps me to follow a structural way of finding a move, that's it, nothing more. Knowledge, patterns, experience, known positions and so on it is something I consider while composing a plan or ToDo list. It is the only way I found to introduce my knowledge in the mind map.

And a mind map will support the iterative process at multiple levels. I think that starting with a linear checklist offers fewer possibilities to capture this type of knowledge.

For example, on a number of examples and exercises we are advised that once we decide on a particular plan we should stick with the plan (see Year 2/1 Keres-Smyslov). So you might show a feedback loop with the Prepare and Verify blocks since you are in this case verifying variations as opposed to key moves. The mind map will alow you do discover where this type of feedback would best occur (or maybe it should be part of the candidate selection process so you could discard the variation earlier in the thinking process).

It's true that a linear representation suffers from some problems. I prefer those problems to the problem of having a shotgun of unordered steps with no prioritization E.g., if you can mate in one, do not mess around with anything else.

I guess it is a matter of personal preference. Also, if you actually write out, in language, your thought process, you have to choose an order. Since tactics are key, and we tend to lose tactical vision the longer we stare at a board, I actually think it is very important to start by scanning for threats (not spend five minutes thinking about a good square for your knight).

On importance of "threats first":
http://chessconfessions.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-start-by-looking-at-threats.html

OTOH I am not inflexible, and humans are not rigid, algorithm-following computers, so I don't mean to say a mind map is wrong. It's just a format that doesn't resonate as well with me as a more structured approach.

In my document (pdf is above) I discussed, a little bit, the concern that a more ordered approach artificially imposes a sequential algorithm on something that is much more messy in practice:

It is important to keep in mind that while this is written as a step-by-step thought process, this is largely an artifact of the medium used to describe it (written English). Things will rarely be so tidy in practice. As long as you are consistently applying all the steps, it doesn't matter whether they are done in strict order. For instance, when a tactical pattern pops out at me (step 1), I will often jump directly to analyzing it while it is fresh in my mind (step 3), before tactical fatigue sets in. If the analysis reveals that the move will give me a material advantage, it becomes the standard against which I judge all other candidate moves.

While I do think prioritizing things is important, it is also important to talk about applying things in practice, which is nonlinear and messy and we jump around. Whether that is ideal is another question. But I think we all realize nobody thinks like a Kotov.

I wish I could change my thinking process to be so structured. Mine is a haphazard process of "this looks good" have a look at it for too long and then find that it has some bad line in it... look at another move etc until I have a few candidates and then wonder which move is better from those that remain. I end up in time trouble a lot.

Nice diagram, has missed this topic.
Same pb than Borgqueen here, even knowing what the process should be, i don't apply it consistently, maybe this visual figure will help me focus.