Don't just memorize openings, or lines of play, understand the reason behind the moves
I'm sure many of you have heard variations of this before, but how does one go about "understanding the reason behind the moves" Annotations give a glimpse of this reasoning, but open any chess book, and less than 10% of the moves normally include annotations - - what about the other 90+% If one cannot access the thought process behind chess moves, how can one understand the reason behind them?
To understand the reasoning behind the moves of a game, I would suggest starting with how the pawn structure changed, as described at my website under "Instruction" is an article called, "How to Play through a Game's Pawn Structures."
The next "layer" of reasoning might be, where do the pieces belong in order to bring about desired changes in the pawn structure.
A layer below that is whether a move is playable tactically. In the game given in the above article, one reaction to the position reached after 17...fxe4 might be, "White's knight belongs at d5 or e4." Then one might see that 18. Nc3 could ideally get the knight to one of those squares, and further thought might show that 18. Nc3 is not only strategically desirable but tactically playable.
Hm, I guess identifying my website (which can be found in my profile) was deemed objectionable. Let's try again.
Under "Instruction" at my website is also an article called, "A Game with My Moves Explained," which perhaps approaches the level of annotation that the original poster would like to see. I'd be interested in any feedback.
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@mchill saidThat's why I prefer older books - where the annotations say something like "this wins a pawn but your pieces end up uncoordinated" - to modern books, which merely say "Stockfish says +0002, which is clearly superior".
Don't just memorize openings, or lines of play, understand the reason behind the moves
I'm sure many of you have heard variations of this before, but how does one go about "understanding the reason behind the moves" Annotations give a glimpse of this reasoning, but open any chess book, and less than 10% of the moves normally include annotations - - what about the other ...[text shortened]... cannot access the thought process behind chess moves, how can one understand the reason behind them?