I came up with a basic model of a thinking method to miss less.
1. Look if your opponent is making a threat.
2. Look for attacking or developing moves, evaluate as you go. make an attacking plan (ex. I intend to place the queen on g3 and bishop on h6).
3. Look for positional manouvres if there is little or no tactical play. Evaluate as you go.
4. When doing step 2 and 3, follow Nimzovich's rule of looking for a better move.
5. Look at the board with the eyes of a beginner.
I tried to force myself to follow this method and my results improved. without forcing myself to follow a step, I have missed it's benefits many times. It is often hard to follow this method if your are distracted when you are on the attack.
Thanks for your post.
I would love to develop something along these lines - based on a flowchart that takes you step-by-step through a rigourous thinking process before making each move.
One could easily imagine a piece of computer software that takes you through the branches of thought based on the position being analysed. The software should be blind to the actual position, and respond only to the replies of the user to the questions posed. It would be something that forces you to really see and really consider what is happening on the board. Basically it should be like a Q&A session with a Master, but where the Master only asks the appropriate questions, and you, the user/player provides the answers.
It should not something that replaces your thinking (like a chess playing computer), but something that trains your mind into a methodical thought process, so that thorough analysis and "best" move selection become second nature.
I find my thinking is currently way too lazy, and lazy thinking the most common cause of my lost games.
So, does such software exist?
here are some extra tricks for tactical thinking:
look for tactical weaknesses, undefended, loosely defended, half-trapped pieces.
see how you can attack your opponent's tactical weaknesses.
see if you can create another one and after that attack two
weaknesses at the same time.
or if you can aggrevate that weakness to win the battle.
or if even your opponent has no current tactical weakness right now, look for a way to create one and attack it.
Sorry, but I can't think of positional thinking tricks, I don't think there are any because it is based on knowledge. And I have never liked positional play.