Answers.Body: <p>There are several books on "planning", which is often synonymous with "positional" or "strategic" play.  Dvoretsky's books are good; check out this: <a href="https://www.chess.com/article/view/ideas-on-planning-from-the-greatest-chess-coach" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.chess.com/article/view/ideas-on-planning-from-the-greatest-chess-coach</a></p>
  
  <p>Here are some basic suggestions:
  Learn about the 'minority attack' which typically comes out of the Queen's Gambit Declined, and/or learn about the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation.  These are long-range plans that comes right out of the opening.
  Read a well annotated book of games from a great positional player, like "Karpov's Best Games" by Karpov,  or "Smyslov's 125 Selected Games" by Smyslov!</p>
  
  <p>And my basic answer to your question is:
  1. Imagine where you want your pieces (idea)
  2. How can you get them there? (plan)
  3. Calculate (tactics) 
  What can your opponent do about your plan?
  Maybe his plan is faster and he can ignore you.  Maybe you have to pause your plan a move to slow him down...</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-12-06T20:24:05.603Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2017-12-06T20:24:05.603Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ywapom
Answers.Body: <p>Taking into account your earlier version of this question (with number of moves to think ahead, etc), I think you might be a bit confused about the terms. Basically chess is played using two methods:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>tactics/calculation</li>
  <li>positional play/strategy</li>
  </ol>
  
  <h2>Tactics/calculation</h2>
  
  <p>... is when you actually calculate concrete variations, i.e. something like: <em>if I make this move, my opponent does this, to which I reply with this move, etc</em>. When playing chess, in most positions you don't need to calculate very deep: perhaps 3 moves or less, or not at all. This is because most positions are rather quiet and you have a number of equally good moves available. Trying to calculate deep here would quickly exhaust your memory (e.g. if at each move you have say 3 possible moves to consider, then you already have 27 variations if you calculate 3 (half)-moves deep). Of course there are also positions where you need to calculate deep (say 10 moves), but if it is some forced line with few alternative candidate moves, it is not all that hard to do so.</p>
  
  <p>Anyway, there are situation, where pure calculation does not help and you need another method to come up with moves, which brings us to...</p>
  
  <h2>Positional play/strategy</h2>
  
  <p>.. this is based more on intuition, experience, general principles and is much harder to train than tactics/calculation. To start with, you should familiarize yourself with common <a href="https://chesstempo.com/positional-motifs.html" rel="noreferrer">positional motifs</a>. Don't need to learn all of them at once, but start with some easy important ones like "piece activity", "open file/file control", "king safety", "isolated pawns", "good pieces/bad pieces". </p>
  
  <p>When playing a game of chess, try to take into account these factors, e.g. think what pieces are badly placed, check whether you can occupy an open file, etc. This will lead naturally to meaningful plans. If you run out of plans, learn a new positional motif and see whether this helps.</p>
  
  <p>In the opening/middle-game, the plan is often determined by the pawn structure and you can read about it in: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure" rel="noreferrer">the wikipedia article</a></p>
  
  <p>The tricky part comes, when you have several positional motifs available and need to decide for one or the other. For instance, <em>is it a good idea to go for a pawn storm, if this neglects my king's safety</em>?</p>
  
  <p>In order to train such positional ideas, ideally, you have a stronger player look over your games and point out strategical mistakes (or compliment you on your strategical play). Another option is to read or watch annotated games and see what plans they develop in different types of positions. Learning this plan making will take time and many games in order to gain experience on what works and what does not. But don't worry, for most beginner games, tactics/calculation is much more important than long term strategy.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-12-05T13:59:59.713Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2017-12-05T13:59:59.713Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: user1583209
Body: <p>I am intermediate Chess player, I can make common plans, but when it comes to create long plans, I can't plan. Can I please get some help? Thanks</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T09:12:21.653Z
Comments.Text: The question seems clear enough to me and I'd like to answer it. Can it be reopened?
Comments.UserDisplayName: user1583209
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T12:21:18.727Z
Comments.Text: @user1583209 I guess it hasn't got enough votes to reopen.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Myungjin Hyun
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T16:14:02.673Z
Comments.Text: Hi there, if you could please tell me how I can improve my question so it can be reopened that'd be very helpful. Thanks
Comments.UserDisplayName: Ishan Patel
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T17:07:59.780Z
Comments.Text: Do you mean calculation, or strategic planning? There is a difference.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Herb
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T17:54:56.403Z
Comments.Text: @HerbWolfe I think I am after strategic planning.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Ishan Patel
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T18:34:00.673Z
Comments.Text: I think it’s a vague question, but easy enough to answer.
Comments.UserDisplayName: TheAutomaton
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T19:42:05.407Z
Comments.Text: At least one could recommend an introductory book about strategy. Maybe Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies"?
Comments.UserDisplayName: itub
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T21:51:08.193Z
Comments.Text: @Ywapon Apparently the question raised  by Mr Script is how to use calculation for strategy (which does not go together as we all know). Asking the poster to get rid of the calculation or the strategy part in the question would lead to a somewhat different question (which is probably already answered somewhere on chess SE) than what is actually asked here.
Comments.UserDisplayName: user1583209
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-04T22:48:37.200Z
Comments.Text: Thank you everyone, just improved my question.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Ishan Patel
Tags: <strategy><planning>
Title: how to make long-range plans?
ThreadText: # how to make long-range plans?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2017-12-04)
  
  I am intermediate Chess player, I can make common plans, but when it comes to create long plans, I can't plan. Can I please get some help? Thanks
  
  **Tags:** strategy, planning
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: The question seems clear enough to me and I'd like to answer it. Can it be reopened?  
  > **username_2**: @username_1 I guess it hasn't got enough votes to reopen.  
  > **username_0**: Hi there, if you could please tell me how I can improve my question so it can be reopened that'd be very helpful. Thanks  
  > **username_3**: Do you mean calculation, or strategic planning? There is a difference.  
  > **username_0**: @HerbWolfe I think I am after strategic planning.  
  > **username_4**: I think it’s a vague question, but easy enough to answer.  
  > **username_5**: At least one could recommend an introductory book about strategy. Maybe Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies"?  
  > **username_1**: @Ywapon Apparently the question raised  by Mr Script is how to use calculation for strategy (which does not go together as we all know). Asking the poster to get rid of the calculation or the strategy part in the question would lead to a somewhat different question (which is probably already answered somewhere on chess SE) than what is actually asked here.  
  > **username_0**: Thank you everyone, just improved my question.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2017-12-05. Score: 5 | Accepted answer
  
  Taking into account your earlier version of this question (with number of moves to think ahead, etc), I think you might be a bit confused about the terms. Basically chess is played using two methods:
  
  1. tactics/calculation
  2. positional play/strategy
  
  ## Tactics/calculation
  
  ... is when you actually calculate concrete variations, i.e. something like: *if I make this move, my opponent does this, to which I reply with this move, etc*. When playing chess, in most positions you don't need to calculate very deep: perhaps 3 moves or less, or not at all. This is because most positions are rather quiet and you have a number of equally good moves available. Trying to calculate deep here would quickly exhaust your memory (e.g. if at each move you have say 3 possible moves to consider, then you already have 27 variations if you calculate 3 (half)-moves deep). Of course there are also positions where you need to calculate deep (say 10 moves), but if it is some forced line with few alternative candidate moves, it is not all that hard to do so.
  
  Anyway, there are situation, where pure calculation does not help and you need another method to come up with moves, which brings us to...
  
  ## Positional play/strategy
  
  .. this is based more on intuition, experience, general principles and is much harder to train than tactics/calculation. To start with, you should familiarize yourself with common [positional motifs](https://chesstempo.com/positional-motifs.html). Don't need to learn all of them at once, but start with some easy important ones like "piece activity", "open file/file control", "king safety", "isolated pawns", "good pieces/bad pieces".
  
  When playing a game of chess, try to take into account these factors, e.g. think what pieces are badly placed, check whether you can occupy an open file, etc. This will lead naturally to meaningful plans. If you run out of plans, learn a new positional motif and see whether this helps.
  
  In the opening/middle-game, the plan is often determined by the pawn structure and you can read about it in: [the wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure)
  
  The tricky part comes, when you have several positional motifs available and need to decide for one or the other. For instance, *is it a good idea to go for a pawn storm, if this neglects my king's safety*?
  
  In order to train such positional ideas, ideally, you have a stronger player look over your games and point out strategical mistakes (or compliment you on your strategical play). Another option is to read or watch annotated games and see what plans they develop in different types of positions. Learning this plan making will take time and many games in order to gain experience on what works and what does not. But don't worry, for most beginner games, tactics/calculation is much more important than long term strategy.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2017-12-06. Score: 3
  
  There are several books on "planning", which is often synonymous with "positional" or "strategic" play. Dvoretsky's books are good; check out this: <https://www.chess.com/article/view/ideas-on-planning-from-the-greatest-chess-coach>
  
  Here are some basic suggestions:
  Learn about the 'minority attack' which typically comes out of the Queen's Gambit Declined, and/or learn about the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation. These are long-range plans that comes right out of the opening.
  Read a well annotated book of games from a great positional player, like "Karpov's Best Games" by Karpov, or "Smyslov's 125 Selected Games" by Smyslov!
  
  And my basic answer to your question is:
  1. Imagine where you want your pieces (idea)
  2. How can you get them there? (plan)
  3. Calculate (tactics)
  What can your opponent do about your plan?
  Maybe his plan is faster and he can ignore you. Maybe you have to pause your plan a move to slow him down...
  
  
  ---
  
  