Chess Calculation - Do you use Candidate moves?

It seems that different strong players have different philosophies when it comes to calculation in chess. In particular,  I've never gotten into the habit of thinking about 'candidate moves' in my games, relying instead on either immediate pattern recognition for tactical positions, and general positional considerations (where do I want my pieces) for quiet positions.  

In lots of tactics puzzles, reliance on quick pattern recognition seems key. You just see the mate or fork or whatever, and you don't want to waste time coming up with candidate moves when you already feel you have the strongest move.

My question is, do you use candidate-moves method explicitly in your games?  Does it depend on the time control? Does it depend on the type of position?  Also, do you find that using it significantly improves your results?

Hi Michael interesting reading personally I only use  analysis boards on this site. It’s great to have a plan. I don’t play 1 x 1 Chess on this site but when I did maybe 3-4 x years ago every move I made was carefully considered. I don’t see the point of playing Chess without trying your best this doesn’t involve referring to Chess books or Opening books either as it’s my belief that this kind of thinking just becomes a crutch as you don’t have access to these luxuries over the board. Cheers friend 

I try to get use candidate moves and calculate candidates a few moves deep. I always do this in puzzles but I've not quite embedded it in my game play yet (I get absor

I find it helps prevent me getting tunnel vision and miss opportunities. Also I think it gets my subconscious working on the problem. If someone is considering a couple of moves then they are candidate moves. I'd be surprised if you are not looking at multiple moves. Maybe it has become habitual so you dont notice it.

I guess it really depends on the position. Sometimes when attacking or defending there are several moves to be considered... Of course, this is nothing for shorter time controls.

Thanks, Jane!  This is true about not using databases as a crutch during a game.  I think it's interesting to look at the databases to see what types of positions I tend to struggle with. 

I definitely think careful consideration of moves is important - I'm interested in efficiency of various methods of choosing moves to look at.  Candidate move strategy would limit the search to about 2-4 or so moves and then spend time deciding which is best.

In sharp positions, I tend to just intuit the strongest move and then calculate it; if I can't make it work, I look for something else.  In quieter positions I tend to think more abstractly about where I want my pieces. I never got into the habit of explicitly listing three or so moves before analyzing.

Hi, Mark!  It's not exactly that I don't look at multiple moves.  It's just that when I look at a fresh position, I don't say "Okay, Michael - the moves to be considered are A, B, C" and then proceed to analyze only those moves.  I either see an immediate tactic or move I just consider strong if it is a sharp position and then go with that, or in quieter positions I'll think of where I want my pieces to be and play moves that fit with a plan.  

The question came up because I was watching John Bartholomew's 15 minute games and he tends to pick 3 or so candidate moves.  I'm not sure if that's the way he thinks about the positions or if he does that just for his viewers.  Sometimes he'll only consider one move though.

Hi, Butonic!  I have difficulty defining it explicitly, but I would say a candidate move is one of a small set of moves (approx. 2 - 3) that are filtered before deep analysis to be the sole moves analyzed in a given chess position.  

Use the force

Thanks!  Yeah, I feel that intuition of pattern is more critical for short time controls.  Being aware of patterns can cut calculation (you don't need to solve positions from scratch every time).

Only way to play Chess, haha. There is no try.

The idea of candidate moves is a fallacy. From a computer programming point of view, candidate moves is memory intensive and time consuming.

As you go deeper and deeper, the number of candidate moves you must remember to analyze increases dramatically.

Plus it is time consuming to decide which moves should be candidate moves. 

It is a fallacy as you are either being prejudice on which moves you choose to be your candidate moves. Which is bad because a candidate move is not necessarily the right move. Or, you are doing quick analysis to eliminate moves which shouldn't be candidate moves. In which case finding candidate moves wasn't actually the first step you did.

It is a fallacy as I am certain no GrandMaster is sitting down considering all candidate moves before analyzing a move. Which means they are lying between their teeth. A white lie. I've seen many videos of International Masters and GrandMasters analyzing positions. They never considered the candidate moves first.

I strongly believe a much more efficient and practical method is to iterate and do work with the iteration immediately. Not iterate to list the possibilities and iterate again to work on the possibilities.

Let's consider a program that deletes all files in a folder. We could iterate the folder and get back an array of all files to delete. This is nice as we know the total work to do and on the second iteration we can use the total figure to provide a progress report while we delete the files. This is however bad as we do two separate iterations. Instead we could forget about giving a progress report, and delete the files as soon as we iterate to it. The result is that we delete the files much quicker and we didn't have to allocate memory for an array to store all the files we are going to delete.

The same is just the same for us as humans trying to analyze a position. It is an iterative task just like the file deleting task. Instead of files, We have Chess moves. Instead of directories, we have Chess positions. Instead of allocating memory for storing a list of candidate moves, We simply analyze the first move that attracts us. If that move doesn't work, we simply look at the next move that catches our eyes Considering all candidate moves first doesn't do much for structuring our thinking process. In fact the nature of the Chess game tree doesn't support structured analysis. Mostly, you can't look at a line until the finish, then look at the next line until you. Chess lines get very deep, and there are alot of transpositions or positions that look similar. What I do is jump back and forth between lines I am analyzing.

Another fallacy of candidates moves... The concept that you first look at checks, then captures, then attacks, then positional moves. This is a big fallacy that can be very inefficient. The time spent analyzing in this order, you could have spent analyzing a really powerful move. I have tried analyzing in this order, and found it to be very silly. move 1 I give check. opponent moves. move 2 I can give a check. move 3. I still can check. You do this for a while you notice you are getting transpositions and similar positions. Obviously making no progress.

The big truth is that, if you don't have the ability to find the right move in a position, there is no technique that is going to make that possible. Chess is a game of immense possibilities. Not even the computer can analyze all positions right out. And candidate moves theory will not make your work easier, it will only make it harder and waste your clock time. And for those of you that only considering the candidate moves for the original position/ position zero; just know that you have to considering candidate moves for all positions else it really makes no sense.

Use the Chess understanding you have to decide which move you look at next. If this move fails, look at the next best thing. When considering the opponents reply, then you want to ask yourself how can your opponent harm you. This is the case where considering checks, captures, attacks is very useful.

I use Candidate Moves, yes.

Although I also tend to analyze "backwards". Instead of thinking about the position in front of me and trying to figure out where to go from there, I often just picture an "ideal" position that I would like to have, and then try to figure out how I would reach that position.

Here's an example:

#1
Candidate moves are a powerful concept.
Kotov explained it thoroughly in his "Think Like a Grandmaster"
Carlsen said in an interview he considers 3 candidate moves.

Candidate moves are more useful in long games... at least I tend to not use them in speed games.

But in tactical situations, even in speed games, I'd say they're mandatory. It's extremely useful to list every possible move that defends a certain threat (whether you're building this list for yourself or for your opponent).