under 1500 rated players stay away, what do you think before you move, do you calculate 1 or 2 moves

3 moves ahead. Your move, his response and your move again

@ESP-918, thanks, do you think anything else, or would like to advice me?

@ESP-918, thanks, do you think anything else, or would like to advice me?

Depends on the nature of the position...

95% or so of the time I don't calculate at all. I just play the first move that occurs to me.

Well, there's a lot of unconscious pattern recognition going on. Sort of like asking a tennis player or swimmer or writer how they choose a motion or sentence. A lot of their skill is unconscious due to lots of practice.

But ok, it's still a good question.

Books that present a ridged thinking structure can be enlightening, but strictly speaking no one plays this way. No one follows a strict checklist. You do a little evaluation (like where are the undefended pieces, what are the moves that can check the king) then you do a little calculation (does this short forcing sequence work, what about if I change the move order). And then back to general evaluation maybe this time pawn structure and active pieces, then back to short calculation of forcing and strategically relevant moves. This cyclical process gives a general feeling for the position.

Then, when it's really clear to me what I want to accomplish, and which are the most important features (pawns, minor pieces, squares, files, kings, etc) I try to calculate a sequence where my moves are doing what I ideally want to do, and for my opponent's responses I check a few different types of replies.

I think a good way to picture the different types of replies is imagining a position where you move a pawn to attack an enemy pawn. The opponent has 4 basic options:

1. Capture the pawn
2. Advance the pawn
3. Defend the pawn
4. Ignore your move and play somewhere else.

In more general positions this is something like:

1.Play a forcing move (check capture or threat)
2. Block (or remove the relevance) of a file, rank, diagonal that you planned on using.
3. Directly defend the piece, square, file, etc that you planned on using.
4. Ignoring your move and playing somewhere else (this can be a good test to see if you still believe your idea to be useful even when the opponent ignores it). I.e. you're not relying on a certain response like a capture or recapture for your idea to work.

But to make it basic:

When you like a candidate move, look for the most annoying reply from your opponent. Find the move you'd be most afraid of seeing. Try to falsify your move. Make your move look as bad as possible... ok I think you get the idea.

After this, if you still like your candidate move, then you can play it.

The number of moves that someone thinks ahead is often overblown so it looks impressive.  The number of moves you calculate out depends on your ability, and the position.  

You always look for Forcing Moves first: Checks, Captures, Threats.  You calculate them out as far as you can.  In positions with no Forcing Moves you have to study, and understand the position as well as you can.  If in doubt follow the below guide.

Pre Move Checklist

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.

2. Look for forcing moves: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.

3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.

4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.

5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

Yeah, the number of moves you calculate ahead doesn't really matter. Sometimes you need to see a lot, sometimes you need to but can't (either due to lack of skill or lack of time), and sometimes you don't need to calculate at all.

It's true though that if you're not consistently checking forcing moves (check, captures, and threats) then you may lose the game at any moment, or you may miss a win at any moment. It helps to be very familiar with the basic tactical motifs. Fork, pin, skewer, removing the defender, discovered check, discovered attack.

Me too. 

I try to analyse the position to find the move i would play.

Raman33307 wrote:

@ESP-918, thanks, do you think anything else, or would like to advice me?

Another advice seems easy, that's why most of the people forget about it or simply don't follow which is a BIG mistake. Advice is : looking at the whole board ! Which means exactly that before each move you need to check EVERY other single piece , as after each move positions change dramatically. Remember if you move say a knight and you think he either captures or retreat or bla bla and you just need to concentrate on that, that's good forget about it and look at at the whole board LITERALLY even if you think that there's no point looking at something else right now.

ALWAYS check the whole board

I think there's a huge misconception to non-chess players and chess freshman that the better the player, the more moves they can see ahead. In my opinion, that's not really what chess is about or what makes a player great. For most of the game people don't know 30 moves out based on one move they make. They know a few paths the game could go down. And they might calculate a few longer lines. But for the most part it's about strategizing and accomplishing goals, not following a line. Players are thinking about the current position more than they are about any future position. 

I think it was Emaueal Lasker that said, when he was asked how far ahead he looks.

I look 1 move ahead.  The correct move.

You should read the title once again.