How do you work out what your plan in a game should be? What plans are they? What weaknesses should I aim to benefit?

These are all questions I have no idea how to answer or implement in a game, any help from the community would be helpful! thanks

Here's a stab at it:

Outside of the endgame, I really think plans are really nothing but "micro-goals" that are rarely more than 2-3 moves long that strive to do one of the following:

a) Improve the position of under-developed pieces.

b) Exploit weaknesses (pieces/pawns/squares) or advantages in initiative.

c) Stop any of my opponent's own "micro-goals" as far as possible.

At the sub-2000 (non-Expert) levels, quite often a tactical oversight occurs (soon enough!) and the position then shifts from "micro-goal" execution to converting the win.

So how do i identify the weak pieces/pawns/squares?

Yes, I always come up with the most ambitious plans and then my opponent makes one move and they can all go down the drain...

So mostly for me it is very short term plans as well...

The first question is what opening are you in.  Once you know that and you have studied that opening you should know the general outline of several plans in that opening. 

Easy => Look for them :)

- Weak pieces : Not defended or poorly defended. More common are the "tied" pieces where a weaker piece is being baby-sat by a stronger one.

- Weak pawns :  Backwards, over-advanced, doubled-isolated and if the position + material  warrants it, isolated pawns "can" be weak pawns to go after. There are no thumb rules here ... each position is different.

- Weak Squares :  One example is the hole. For example ,the pawn formation f6-g7-h6 leaves a hole in g6. I'd consider that a weakness to begin with ... but if he didn't even have a light-squared bishop on the board to cover it, it becomes even more of a liability. Another example is the square in front of the isolated pawn. It cannot be attacked by another pawn and the isolani provides cover from frontal attack. That's why Knights are optimum on squares like that.

A good book for you to quickly grasp the basics of planning is Simple Chess by Michael Stean.  Once you cover that, move to the Silman books that deal with understanding the nuances of imbalances.

I used to think plans were these grand 10-12 move schemes that chess authors touted in their games.  The reality of it is that for the middle game,  you really only have to evaluate the board imbalances to figure out what needs attention and what doesn't.    

While that's easy enough to say, I guess the stronger players have the better evaluation, not to mention analysis skills so that when we look at their games, it almost seems that they had ideas that spanned 10-20 moves :)

cool, i have The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery by silman but i think starting with something simple may be better. i have had a quick look at the book on google books and i feel i may actually purchase it when i get some money and after exams have finished!

As I observe master games, I notice that they always make moves that are good or excellent, or at least ones that maintain a status quo, with the occasional brilliancy (and of course a blunder once in a while). This is obvious, else they wouldn't be masters. But what this tells me is, great players play in such a way that their position almost never buckles under the pressure of just one good move by his opponent, which FesterShinetop bemoaned above. If one master plays a great move, his opponent very often maintains enough poise to respond with an equally great move.

Therefore, they must be playing the whole game in such a way that they can adapt to almost any "surprise" that the opponent can spring on them. They always have enough activity, piece mobility, enemy-King pressure, a sufficiently dangerous pawn structure (in terms of solidity and agression: significant threats to eventually promote) to make their positions truly resilient. To do that, these masters must make long-term plans, because short-sighted goals could too easily be outplayed. What would really benefit us, I think, is to learn how to make and execute a long-term, complicated plan (which clearly can't be answered in just one thread such as this one).

thanks everyone, i totally agree with the long term plans as well as short term plans quixote88pianist

i disagree a little about memorizing different openings. Try to understand the endgames and then move on to the middlegame and then finally to the opening. Why? Because endgames are simpler to calculate (yes, you might be calculating for a while when looking at a 10-15 move variation, but there arent a lot of variations to look at)

After you are good at the endgame, you begin to notice certain tactical shots that can be performed by the different pieces. When you have that down, move on to positional play as this requires sound understanding of tactics. Things like not castling queenside when the a- and b-files are open...Now, obviously, if you calculate it out to be perfectly fine, you can do it. However, at this point, warning lamps should start blinking when you see 2 open files directed at your king's position.

And lastly, the opening. This is where you go wrong the most often, but that doesnt mean you can overwhelm your opponents with the gazzilion openings that do exist. And even if you do have all those openings memorized, your opponent might come out just fine and penalize you in the later section of the game.

I think plans can be any size; extremely small, extremely big.

so how should i go around working on my endgames then?

There are many ways. Some people like to play a game with restricted forces, meaning: with the Kings and all the pawns on their starting squares, but no other pieces on the board. Then try only Kings, Rooks, and pawns, again on their starting squares. Keep going with the other pieces.

You can also find endgame quizzes online, or on good chess software.

How do you come up with a chess plan?


by thinking?












... a lot?

The first plan is  to develop your pieces quickly than your opponent.  This means not only moving your pieces to their natural squares but also restricting you opponent from developing his pieces normally.

The next plan is to control the squares on the board.  The more squares you control, the better for you to find an attack and the easir for you to defend. 

The next step is to find an attack.  Look for combinations to get a better position to gain a piece or set up a mating attack later on.

If you decided on a particular plan of attack stick to it and go with confidence.  Do not back off unless it is really futile.  

read up on a lot of king vs king and pawn, and move on to bishops of different color endgames and finally..rook and king endgames. When you get a feel for the rook and king endgames, that is a significant advantage.

However, practising endgames doesnt mean you stop playing chess while you go through endgames. Quite the opposite, keep playing but start applying endgame ideas to your middlegame and even your openings.

This is for instance where the idea of weak pawn structures and strong bishops come from. If you have a bishop vs 3 pawns in the endgame, more often than not, you will lose. Why? Because the pawns will not be locked down to the same color as the bishop. Middlegame however is a different story, if you can securely force the opponent to lock his pawns to certain squares and your bishop is of the same color, then your position will be better. And so on :)