Prophylaxis

[Nick Burrows]

In juggling you can only be as good as your weakest hand. Being 2 footed and having balanced development is important to become good at football.
In chess the plans possibilities of your opponent are of equal importance to your own. Yet most players tend to be very self obsessed in both their strategic and combinational thinking. In many positions the right move can only be arrived at by spotting an essential plan of development for your opponent and playing a move that hinders it.
Perhaps most middlegame errors in calculation occur in the first few moves of a line because of a failure to seek the best possible response open to your opponent at each turn.
I am regularly guilty of this.

I recently watched a video by Simon Williams where he talked through his thought process during live play, and was struck by how central his focus on the opponents plan was to his thinking.

I suspect that prophylaxis is deeply embedded in the thought process of all strong players, and is an essential ingredient of improvement as a player.

The question is how to best train oneself to concentrate on it during a game. Thought processes become so entrenched that the mechanical application of an abstract concept on each turn is difficult to implement.

Thoughts?

Anyway, back to delivering vegetables!

[Joey Stewart]

Thoughts?

Yes, that's probably how I would describe this post

[Nick Burrows]

Thoughts?

Yes, that's probably how I would describe this post

Thanks Joey

x

[Michael Farthing]

I've often felt I am at fault in non considering my opponent's plan - but I have a possible technique. Unfortunately as I only thought of it while reading this thread I have not yet had an opportunity to put it into practice. look out my first opponent on Friday!

Anyway the plan is this: spend your opponent's thinking time planning a stategy for your opponent. Actors amongst us might become so in tune with the part that they almost become their opponent. That should be the aim!

[AustinElliott]

Anyway the plan is this: spend your opponent's thinking time planning a stategy for your opponent. Actors amongst us might become so in tune with the part that they almost become their opponent. That should be the aim!

I'm reminded of the line:

To defeat the enemy, you must become the enemy.

Though this is often attributed to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, I seem to remember finding, when I wanted to quote it in a seminar and looked it up, that the actual source was the fictional Sensei Mr Miyagi in the movie The Karate Kid...

[Richard Bates]

I usually find it hard enough to think of a plan for myself, let alone having to work out one for my opponent as well.

[MJMcCready]

lol

[Nick Burrows]

I've often felt I am at fault in non considering my opponent's plan - but I have a possible technique. Unfortunately as I only thought of it while reading this thread I have not yet had an opportunity to put it into practice. look out my first opponent on Friday!

Anyway the plan is this: spend your opponent's thinking time planning a stategy for your opponent. Actors amongst us might become so in tune with the part that they almost become their opponent. That should be the aim!

Using your opponents time to consider your opponents strategy is an elegant approach - I like it.

The other area of Prophylaxis is in calculation. I try and come up with candidate moves and calculate each one starting with the most forcing line, however I often simply insert natural or obvious replies from my opponent rather than actively searching for good moves for him also!
It's a complete waste of time and energy trying to visualise long variations if you have made a mistake on the second ply.

Errors in calculation occur more often from not considering a move in the first place more than they do from misevaluating a line you are concentrating on.

This is the mechanism I find difficult to implement.