Evaluating Positions

White is a pawn up.

Black has the bishop pair.

White has doubled c-pawns.

Initial evaluation:

I think at first glance I would prefer black here. =+

Black controls the d-file and is attacking the weak c2 square. White loses nothing really by giving the c2 pawn back though except that black would have more control of the d1 square. White has a weak back rank. The queen can be attacked with bd7 or rc8 which neither one seem plausible so the queen doesn't have to move. Qd7 would force a queen trade but after Qxd7 Bxd7 Rd1 white has pressure on the d-file and has improved their position. Black has no checks or immediate mate threats so the king is safe other than being on a weak back rank but I don't think it has to be addressed yet. The a1 rook is probably the worst piece for white. After further evaluating white's queen position, I think that the queen is well placed because it limits the black queen's movement. A queen exchange would benefit white in my opinion.  Black's king is safe but perhaps their plan is unclear still. The more I look at the position the more I think it is equal and will most likely end in a draw.

Canidate moves for white: 

1.a4 

This increases the scope of the a1 rook and also threatens to mess up black's pawn structure. 1a4 would most likely be followed by 1..bxc2 2.a5 which i like for white.

1.ng5 

possible e6 push by white looks interesting after Ng5 but black can easily play e6 first on which the knight might try to find a home on f6 in the future. If you were to put a bishop on the d8-h4 diagonal first though, then e6 by black wouldn't be that great. So after 1.ng5 e6 2.nf3 Bxc2 3. Bg5

1.ng5 f6 2.ne6 Bxe6 3.Qxe6+

1.ng5 f6 2.Qe6+ Bxe6 3. nxe6 fails after the queen move...

1.Bg5 

This move connects the rooks and lets the worst piece (a1 rook come to the d-file maybe) So, this move improves two pieces... 

1.Bg5 Bxc2 2.e6 fxe6 3.Qxe6+ Kh8 4. Bxe7 with a very nice fork! I also didn't see any tactics for black in my safety checks. The possibility of this fork makes it my King of the Hill move for right now.

1.Bg5 f6 2.exf6 and if Bxf6 then Rd1 and if exf6 then still Rd1

My move would be 1.Bg5

The game continued 12.Qa4 Qe8 13.Qh4 Qc6 14.Bh6 Bc2 15.Ng5 f6 16.Qc4+ Kh8 17.Bxg7+ Kxg7 18.Ne6+ Black resigns.

I was going to wait until the off chance that he tried to kick my queen for Qa4.

Bent Larsen said this about the position: White has a clear advantage, but not really because of the extra pawn since the doubled pawn is not worth much. However, White's pawn on e5 is very strong; it constricts the black king's wing and gives white possibilities of attack. The fact that Black has the bishop pair is nothing to write home about as long as the sad bishop on g7 just stands and looks the over-protected e5 pawn. As an experiment, remove the two e-pawns and then the position is rather equal.

After Qa4 Stockfish 5 says the position is about equal (it started at 0.00 and went to 0.24 at depth 28) and it turns out that I overlooked 1..h6 as a reply to Bg5. The bishop is better on f4 and 1.a4 is an okay candidate. 1. Ng5 was just a consideration. I'm not really sure after this if I underestimated the e5 pawn that much but perhaps.

The game: Calvo-Menvielle 1973

What would you suggest to improve my thought process and evaluating skills?

Low Rated Player's Opinion: Playing against people who better than you, but not too far ahead(and not computers; they don't follow the human thought process). Your ability to analyze a game should be only good as your abilility to play, and then things pop out on their own. You don't have much to fret about unless you consider yourself as good as Calvo. I personally realize that as people get better, they can look at bigger pictures at once rather than analyzing a particular part, e.g. of a pawn structure; it's clear that white did that here, immediately seeing a weakness. A nice chess book I saw recently centered around intuition, and I would not reccomend a betterment of analyzation but of inuition(practice practice practice). "Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check."-Magnus Carlsen

I do play with intuition when I'm actually playing. Sometimes I'm not sure what to play so I move what feels best. I think it is fun to really analyze given positions and see how your thoughts match up. "The Improving Chess Thinker" by Dan Heisman gives people of all ratings certain positions and compares their thought processes on how they came to the move that they decide on. I definately agree that practice makes perfect but I'd like to gradually tweak my thought process and learn about that aspect of chess as well.