Originally posted by JusuhTo count the value of pieces and add them up is one idea. But it has to be refined.
I think that maybe, just maybe, you should stop counting the values of pieces.
What is a double pawn worth? What is a free line worth for rooks or bishops? What is a castling worth? What is a pawn on the 7th rank worth? ...and so on.
Then it is easy to evaluate if a sacrifice of a pawn is worth it if you destroy the others king protection at the same tim.
But the positional value counting is very hard for people of my skill and below so I just go by intuition.
But computers do this evaluation all the time and are very refined about it. Without it, computer chess wouldn't be much.