Having trouble with finding the best moves, can anyone here help?

I've recently watched a bunch of gotham chess videos and understand the checklist, checks, captures, attacks, as well as a shallow knowledge of calculation. I played a game against some random bot using this, did the analysis and the computer shows me a ton of moves that I do not understand. For example, in this game, dxc5 is considered the best move. I have no idea why though. Can anyone explain, and show me how I can use the checklist more accurately here? 

Can you send me a game link? Maybe I can analyze it for you. Because the position on the board, dxc5 is an illegal move.

Are you playing white?

Ooops. I have something to do.

dxc5 was the best move for white. Black cannot recapture ...dxc5 as pawn d6 is pinned on Kd8 by Qd1. On ...bxc5 exd6 wins.
Black is in trouble: can no longer castle, white has a lead in development: only 2 pieces on their original squares as opposed to 4 from black. In such situations white can attack and has to open files to do so hence dxc5.

tygxc How did you see the move?

First of all, visualization is the most hardest skill in chess. It is the most important skill even to GM's. I am not an expert but I can share you 1 tips I am doing right now. These are the steps on visualization that I am currently doing right now.

Step 1: Imagine that all of pieces in the board have a special power like shadowcat in XMen. They can move wherever they want but they are only limited by their movements.

Step 2: Eliminate all of the possible places they can move because of certain limitations. There are two types of limitations, absolute and temporary.

Absolute limitations are checks, and absolute pin.

Regarding Checks you can do the following: Capture the Attacker, Block the Attacker or Move your King away from the Attacker

Absolute Pin makes the pinned piece can't move as long as the King is on the Attacking Piece View if the pinned piece will move. If the pinned piece becomes important to your play you can either add another blockage, Capture the Attacker or Move your King away from the Attacker's Control Squares if your piece move.

Temporary limitations are limitations other than Absolute Limitations.

Step 3: Make a Plan Based on Step 1 and Step 2. Try to navigate the board by means of eliminating limitations while making opponent's pieces movements limited. The more powerful your pieces than your opponent the better.

Step 4: If Your Opponent's Piece Becomes more powerful than your piece, do not hesitate to trade those pieces. It is better to eliminate threats as soon as possible if you know that your piece will not become more powerful than that piece in the whole game.

Step 5: If Your Piece is more powerful than your opponent, do not trade your piece for their weak piece.

Step 6: If you find a tactics or mating pattern, always make sure that your opponent cannot counter attack after you move. Mating pattern that includes sacrifice are very dangerous if you did not plan it exhaustively.

That's all.

@8

"How did you see the move?"
++ general principle: with a lead in development and attacking: look to open files.

First of all, Your King is already safer than his King. So you don’t need to think a lot about your King Safety. His King is still in the center but even you break through the center to attack the King he can still hide by using his white bishop. But the advancement of the pawn gives you leverage because of space advantage. The more space you control the powerful your pieces are. Since you don't have other things to do than maintaining center pressure making your 2 pawn center pawn chain gives you leverage by controlling his undeveloped knight not being developed in the center. Because most of the time Knights belong to center squares unless it is necessary. Because of this the Knight becomes very weak. You should not worry the other Knight attacking you because he can’t do anything about you. Since you created the pawn chain itself, you can mobilize your Knight that is blocking your bishop that is indirectly attacking the Queen. Because you had moved your Knight on d4 with a momentum of making discover attack on the Queen, you had gain a momentum which will lead to another combo because the opponent Queenside is still weak, you can mobilize your white bishop on b5 which would be very strong because the opponent King is already weak to compensate with your attack. You can trade your white bishop to their bishop if you want to eliminate distractions, which I prefer most of the time given that there is a very promising position of my pieces. I am not good at calculating but most of the time if their King is so weak, you can find tactics easily.

Sorry for bad review. The engine beats me out of those plans. Moving on, after you capture the pawn on c5 or dxc5 Black knowing that his King is very weak because of the explanation of my past review he advanced his pawn instead of hiding from his bishop, another plan must be executed. As you can see after he advanced to d5, the game became closed which would create limitations of what White pieces can do. But still, white can gain momentum by moving his Knight for discover attack to opponent Queen, but the Engine instead attack the Black Knight on Queenside with a3 which is very confusing given that there is already a tactic that you can find to gain momentum. After that Black leave his Knight hanging and instead chose bxc5. Then White captured the hanging Knight axb4. I don’t know why did this happen but I find it still confusing on this sacrifice. Moving on, Black chose Bb7 to protect his center pawn to prevent the center from opening. White played bxc5 to prevent the Black c pawn to close the center, which would develop the Black dark Bishop which Black didn’t, White might respond by rook a5 but he chose not to because if he do that Black would attack with which will make White more moves moving his rook away from danger which will not serve its purpose of moving to the center. Instead Black Moved his Queen on f5 to attack the White dark Bishop. White respond with Qd2. Black played g5, because he is desperate to open the g file for Rook and Queen Combo. Then the trades happen. White Bxg5, Black h5 to remove the Bishop from the path. White Bf4 to protect the g3 square. If ever Black continue with his plan, he can choose to lift one of his pawn because the Black Dark Bishop would be active in h4 to remove the barricade. But doing so it will weaken the light square which will give the Black White Bishop a chance to attack the squares near the King. But he somehow get scared and get out of the d file Where the White Queen reside. Maybe the purpose is to walk the King up to the right side corner to get away from future attacks. Then White starts to attack the Queenside to make a fork and in doing so would build a pawn chain if Black captured it with his Dark Bishop which would create a pawn chain that would limit the potential of Black Knight. So he evaded the fork to prevent the pawn chain from happening and to hide his King in the process. Then Nd6 happened as predicted forking Black Queen. I promise I didn’t see that the Queen is forked in the process so I take back the last comment. Black still didn’t captured the Knight but instead moved his Queen in the White Bishop’s way. I don’t know how to describe it but I think Black is going nuts. I don’t know anymore what to say. Moving on, White still didn’t use the discover attack tactic and instead Qb4. What the hell is happening? I am going nuts because of what is happening. Then, the Bishop escaped in the process. I get tired of all of this so I don’t want to continue anymore. I experience a lot of emotions in this process and because of this I am in constant awe of how do engines think their moves. Anyway, thanks for the experience.

Let us tackle the first mystery, after making a Discover Attack with Nd4, Black would play Qg5 but somehow Black counter attack on c2 square with his Knight and Queen. White attack the Black Queen again trapping the piece again that could end her life. Because Black can’t anything anymore, he wants to counterattack by capturing the pawn bxc5 to capture the White Knight. After Black had captured the Knight, his Knight will be liberated by future attacks of White pieces. Then White Bishop take the Queen with but somehow Black chose instead to capture the Bishop. The engine might be saying, Black need to make a counter attack so I would liberate my Rook, besides the Rook needs to attack the Kingside to become useful but I doubt it because material imbalance. So, maybe he needs to hide. Then a move Ndb5 is played by White saving the Knight. Because he infiltrated the base, he can safely do what he wants. Then Black Bd7, white played a3 without fearing the piece trade which would lead to his benefit because he can use an outpost on d6. Advancing a pawn if Black would capture it with his Bishop. I made a mistake again at predicting a move. White instead made a move axb4 capturing Black Knight. The sole reason is because his rook would be powerful if an White opens his a file. Black made a move which is Bc6. White respond with Ne4 to reroute his Knight, which works because the Pawn on d5 is pinned. Black captured cxb4. Then White would play Qd5, which adds another attack on a7. This could lead to the same attack pattern in the first scenario but the difference is the second part is inefficient compared to the first one. Still, White is already winning even though he didn’t chose the best move. Just don’t do blunder if you don’t want your opponent to equalize.

I saw I came I died