In this lesson I want to explain to you the Planning Approach. This is the approach we use when the orientation on the position has shown us that the position is strategic in nature and that we cannot play our move “immediately”.

Like the Analytical Approach discussed in lesson #3, the Planning Approach also consists of a number of steps, and I’m going to make you familiar here with the work of Jeremy Silman, since it does not make sense to reinvent the wheel. Silman is a very interesting chess thinker and considers 5 steps for the Planning Approach. I quote from his famous book “How To Reasses Your Chess”:

1. Figure out the positive and negative imbalances for both sides.
2. Figure out the side of the board you wish to play on. You can only play where a favorable imbalance exists or the possibility of creating a favorable imbalance exists.
3. Don’t calculate! Instead, dream up fantasy positions, i.e., the positions you would most like to achieve.
4. Once you find a fantasy position that makes you happy, you must figure out if you can reach it (this is where the Analytical Approach is your main tool – Waldemar). If you find that your choice was not possible to implement, you must create another dream position that is easier to achieve.
5. Only now do you look at the moves that you wish to calculate (called candidate moves) (again, this is where the Analytical Approach is your main tool – Waldemar). The candidate moves are all the moves to our dream position.

I think Silman is to be applauded for this scheme, since he has been able to make explicit what many chess players are doing when thinking of a plan. And if you are not doing it you should consider starting to!

Now I have been trying to describe Silman’s scheme in other words and have come up with the following:

1. breaking down the position into its characteristics
2. naming the pros and cons that each side has, i.e. the ways in which the positions differ
3. applying the rules that have to do with these differences
4. formulating a plan from these findings for both sites
5. finding out concrete ways to reach your goal and frustrate the other guy’s goal

OK, a word about those characteristics or imbalances as Silman calls them, that can constitute pros and cons for either side. These are the things that the first step of the Planning Approach should identify and they normally involve:

• material (im)balance
• king safety
• difference between – pairs of – minor pieces (f.i. good knight versus bad bishop, or more subtle distinctions)
• control of open files, ranks, diagonals and squares
• pawn structure
  • space
  • weak pawns
  • (distant) free pawns
  • strong points
  • open or closed positions
• development
• initiative

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but names the most important factors.

Let me add some notes now to Silman’s “thinking technique”. When considering the practice of my own chess playing, I notice that I don’t use his technique very often. Now this either indicates that:

1. it is rather tiring and impractical or
2. that I should try and use it more often to get better results or
3. that it is not often necessary to use his technique because of the fact that
   • most positions require the analytical approach
   • very often players make mistakes, rendering “BIG” planning completely irrelevant

I’m sorry to say that on my level we simply make too many mistakes…

Nonetheless, it is useful to have a good scheme when you need it and we are going to practice it. We will see quickly that we don’t have to use it rigidly. We start with two positions from lesson #2 that we decided were positional in nature.