Prophylaxis thinking

I'm currently ready  Mastering postional chess by Daniel Naroditsky. He talks about prophylaxis thinking is the back bone to improving your postional chess. I don't quite understand prophylaxis thinking just yet. Can anybody explain it better to me and or put up a diagram showcasing a game which it was used in?

Dvoretsky is very big on Prophylaxis thinking--the way I understand it (and I don't claim to fully understand it) is you make moves based on anticpation of moves or plans that your opponent may play. An example may include moving a Rook to a closed file in with the idea that eventually the file will be an open file and the rook is ideally placed. Hope that helps

Prophylaxis means countering threats before they happen, usually by controlling squares that your opponent would like to put his pieces on. Its fairly simple sometimes, but in positional games it gets more like that ^ diagram.

 This helped out, I have a book on dvoretsky, but I haven't read it. Maybe this is a sign that I should?

In fact, Bb4 is a good move regardless as White's knight is trapped unless help arrives from the White king.

I often have moments of panic where I think that I left a piece hanging and then I see that my opponent can't take it anyway because of some combination. I call it anaprophylaxis- realizing after a threat that I had prepared for it all along.

Prophylactic thinking is the process of attempting to determine not only what the best course of action is for you, but also what it is for your opponent.  It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to make prophylactic moves (moves that prevent what your opponent wants to do), it just means that you should be aware of what your opponent wants to do, and should evaluate whether or not it is worth it to make moves specifically to prevent it rather than carrying out your own strategy.

 Perfect!!!

 Would you like to play a game?

thank youuuuuuuuu very much

what is objective evaluation

Hi Friends here you have an article about prophylaxis with some advices and examples http://www.chess.com/blog/JRgascon/profilactic-thinking-i

          They did not play perfectly,but applied Prophylaxis,even before knowing of such a theme!

Prophylaxis is a term pushed very strongly by Nimzowitsch and involves minimizing your opponents ability to create threats, including taking away potential N-outposts and dominating open files.

It also involved a network of overprotection with your pieces.

Most games are lost because the loser gave away more material than his opponent and prophylaxis and overprotection aim to prevent it.

Of course, if you've reached a decent rating in chess, you know that if you do not make threatening moves, pure defense is a losing proposition.  So you have to balance how much you organize your defense with how much you threaten your opponent, sometimes sticking your neck out.