Precise thought patterns, acronyms, X seconds per move... This seems like a terrible, robotic way to play chess, at least when it comes to having fun. I've played in excess of 100k games on lichess (mostly 3 minutes, some 5 minute and bullet too, no increments) with my ELO rating being ~2100 and I don't consciously do any of these (whether these or approximations of such still take place unconsciously is a different matter).
In fact, I play purely by feel, looking at the board until a move "feels right". Similarly for time management, I try not to spend more time than my opponent at all times. If my opponent plays faster than me, I speed up. If my opponent is slower, I slow down but try to maintain a slight time advantage.
This translates to the game never feeling like manual mental labor. Instead, it's moves and decisions seemingly streaming out of me without conscious control, almost like a superpower I never knew I had. It feels great and is a lot of fun.
> No masters are sitting there counting TSAW TISP on their claws! I think this is misguided. A rigorous thought pattern is not a cage, it is an x ray. It shows our lion's bones. Strong players don't notice their thought patterns - you only notice bones when they're broken. The goal is not to think TSAW TISP in t, the goal is for good thought patterns to become so internalised that they form the skeleton our muscles hang on. Bones force our chess lion's muscles to work harmoniously - bones make it impossible for muscles to work any other way.
This is about helping new players figure this out. Or about helping players with poor time management figure out how to build that feeling and unlock the next level for themselves. “Play by feel” is unhelpful advice for those people and sometimes people are unable to get to the next level by themselves and need formal structures like this to figure out how to get better
The helpful advice is to just try to match your opponent's speed. This is 10 times more useful than the OP advice based on some formula.
Chess is about the ebb and flow of ideas between you and the opponent. If you're not calculating when your opponent is, you'll lose. This is why this the advice is the right advice. You have to develop awareness and "responsiveness" to what your opponent is doing.
I think I just don't enjoy chess, so maybe all advice is wasted on me and I should give up on it for this lifetime but I appreciate your sentiment.
Periodically I try to learn, and I know some openings out to a handful of moves and have done a bunch of end game puzzles and read about some concepts, but that middle area feels like a dark forest with no obvious path.
I either make the blunder that sets me up to lose, watch my opponent make their blunder, or we survive.
I think a more structured approach to the midgame would help me develop some of the sensibilities the grandparent poster is talking about. Does that even exist?
Opening/end game is easier to study since there are less possible moves. At mid-game, it helps to apply more general concepts. So look for forks, skewers, advantageous trades, etc
This is the actual answer and one that pretty much all strong players will agree on.
This "feel right" ability goes by different names unconscious mastery, intuition, GM-RAM, drunken chess, Blink, pattern recognition and so on.
How to develop it is another question.
Sadly I fear it is almost impossible to develop it past teenage years.
There is something magical that happens around age 13-15(Fischer said he just got good when he made this "jump", of course he was around 2300 before that). Suddenly everything just clicks.
I was a lowly A level player when it just clicked around the age of 15 and I was a master. Sadly/luckily I did not progress past FM. The "click" is a required but not sufficient condition for GM at an OTB play.
Sure for some it happens at a bit later stage for some at a bit younger stage. You have to do some work before that and to become a super GM you have to do work afterwards. (as Anand famously said you read a bunch of Informators afterwards)
As Tal said to young Kasparov - Garry you have to sac first and calculate afterwards.
I would think that you have spent a long time previously, thinking about the best move, to learn these habits and feelings that come to you instinctively now, yes?
Not consciously calculating, there is no effort put into minimaxing. I just look at how the board is set up, focus on the position, the patterns that the pieces dictate, squares that are weak, king position. It sounds like a script but my point is that it doesn't take conscious mental effort, these are mostly intuitive actions.
Of course I wasn't born that way, I've spent years playing chess and it's obvious that these years of playing resulted in a calibrated network of weights in my brain that allow me now to play by feel. My point is more that I didn't perform any structured routines when playing games like the article describes. I kept playing and doing tactics training and my brain did the rest through osmosis. Which leads me to my final point in that tactics and pattern recognition matter and I think, having discussed this with many folks including club players, that they are the best way to rapidly increase one's skill.
90% of time you do not calculate, you "feel" the moves.
There is a saying that a difference between SuperGM, GM, IM, and a master is how many times a game they have to really spend time on a move that they are not sure of.
SuperGM might be unsure about 1-3 times a game, GM 3-5, IMs 5-7, and as a master I have about 7-10 moves.
Notice that depending on your time control, you will still want to take time to verify-calculate your "feel" moves.
In fact, I play purely by feel, looking at the board until a move "feels right". Similarly for time management, I try not to spend more time than my opponent at all times. If my opponent plays faster than me, I speed up. If my opponent is slower, I slow down but try to maintain a slight time advantage.
This translates to the game never feeling like manual mental labor. Instead, it's moves and decisions seemingly streaming out of me without conscious control, almost like a superpower I never knew I had. It feels great and is a lot of fun.