In my readings I've come across the concept of a plan. To tell you the truth, I'm a bit mistified by the concept. I read about how one plan is to protect a certain pawn, but how am I supposed to know which pawn to rally my defenses around?

At what point in the game do you usually develop a strategic plan? When do you usually start to look for imbalances to develop a plan? Which imbalances are the ones that you usually base your plans on?

I'd really like to have a plan in the near future, but right now I haven't got the foggiest.

What's your rating?

If you're a beginner (below 1200 - real tournament rating, not overinflated internet rating), don't worry about it. Go study some tactics instead.

If you're intermediate level (1200-1700), get Silman's Complete Endgame Course and start studying that. Knowing what endgames are won, lost, or drawn will help you plan what pawn structures to develop and pieces to trade in the middle game.

Once you've learned endgame basics, get Silman's "How to Reassess Your Chess", which is a book that's written to answer the specific questions in your initial post.

--Fromper

Typically you will create a whole series of mini-plans which are sometimes connected together and sometimes not. You have to create plans which are concretely based upon the current position and situation which you are faced with. Your opponent will have his own plans and may make a move or series of moves which require you to respond and abandon temporarily or permanently whatever plans you were pursuing.

You will usually start planning right after you have completed the opening and are out of your book. Every game is different so it is not possible to give you a generic cookie cutter solution to use in every game.

Fromper,

I'm below 1200 and I'm studying tactics with Personal Chess Trainer. I do at least one lesson each day if I can, sometimes life gets in the way. Each tactics lesson takes me about and hour or more.

I see no problem with trying to develop good playing skills. I'm trying to change the way I think during a game. I have bad habits that I need to break and I know that "just throwing wood around" without having a plan is a bad habit.

I have Silman's complete end game course and I do look at it, but I'm following his suggestion so I'm not trying to learn the entire book right now. All I'm doing is studying up to the "E" rated end games. Not much there really, although I did think about the idea of the deep freeze after one of my games. The end games are not second nature, so I often forget the lessons during play. Hopefully by thinking about the positions after games, I'll be more likely to remember the next time the situation arises.

I have Silman's "How to Reassess your Chess" as well as "Amatuer's Mind". I'm working my way through the latter right now which has brought up the whole idea of plans.

Crash,

I'm trying to get concrete examples of typical plans. I know there is no such thing as cookie cutter plans, a game can take all sorts of turns. Even when trying to memorize openings, you are bound to run into people who simply want to do crap to get you out of your opening and play from the hip.

Here is a typical example of “planning” or actually a series of short range maneuvers from one of my own games. Not a perfect example because I'm no GM, but you'll get the idea.
Chess Game Replayer
My “plan” at move 22 was simply to reposition the N to a better square because it wasn’t accomplishing anything at f5. I decided to play it to c4 where it put pressure on Black’s e-Pawn. The next “plan” at move 29 was to double R’s on the 7th rank. The plan at move 37 was to create an outside passed P. At move 43 the plan was to bring the K over to the Q-side to assist. At move 41 it was simply to march over to the K-side and gobble up the P’s.

The game was not one big, long range plan, but rather a series of short range maneuvers designed to place pieces in more active positions. Sometimes the best you can hope for are small improvements in your position. And yes I know Black, a long time CC master, missed a draw in the ending.

Eladar, if you haven't read "Logical Chess: Move by Move" by Chernev, that would be a good place to start. He goes through complete master games, giving the ideas behind every move. This will help you with planning by providing good examples of typical attacking plans in relatively short games.

--Fromper

I never heard positive comments on Chernev’s book until I got on this forum. I never read it so I have no opinion. Anyway for anybody rated over 1400 I would highly recommend any book by CJS Purdy. He had a wonderful knack for explaining in words ideas and concepts in such a lucid manner that you can’t help but learn something. Of particular note is “Search for Chess Perfection” which in addition to a short bio and excellent collection of his games is a collection of his magazine articles explaining everything from opening play, how to avoid blunders, how to plan moves, endgame advice, you name it. These are short, concise articles and can be read in no particular order. I gave a friend rated mid-1600’s a copy of the section on avoiding blunders and move planning and within a couple of months he went to the 1800 level. I could literally see his play improving. Bobby Fischer also thought highly of Purdy’s analysis so it’s not just my opinion…Fischer agreed with me.

Fromper,

I have access to Logical Chess and have worked my way through the first couple of games. I noticed that 13. a 4 a6 in Jackson's game is an idea explored in game 1! I thought it was really cool when I knew exactly what 14 was going to be.

Jackson,

Thanks for the game and explanation. It seems that I do this kind of planning already. According to Silman, you should have some basic long term strategic goals such as trying to aquire outposts for you knights on the 5th rank, especially when you are the knight side of a bishop vs knight imbalance. If you are on the bishop side of the imbalance, your plan should be to prevent any such outposts. From what I'm understanding the long term plans have more to do with pawn positions.

It looks like Purdy's book will be on my list books to aquire list. I'll probably pick it up sometime this summer. Thanks for the recommendation. It really sounds like a book that is exactly what I'm looking for.

Well, Eladar, you are making progess because you apparently noticed something similar in two different games and used it to figure out a reply. This is called pattern recognition and is a vital part of improvement.

Before planning it is necessary to make sure there are no tactics in the position. Only after you’ve assured yourself there aren’t any should you begin planning. Here’s what Purdy had to say: the essence of planning is the visualization of of a future position of some or all of your pieces. You then seek to play for that position. GM Andy Soltis wrote: Much more common is the kind of calculation that calls for seeing not more than two moves into the future. And most of the time these two-move variations lead to only minor improvements in the position. I have read similar comments by other GM’s and strong masters.

I think Silman’s book is excellent because he tells you how to do determine long-range plans based on the requirements of the position. Purdy, Soltis and others are speaking more of what I’d describe as small maneuvers designed to reach the goal of the overall plan. For example in the game I gave White’s plan generally is to expand on the Q-side (so in fact Black had better at move 13 with …a5 to hinder White’s Q-side expansion.) Silman’s technique gives you the general, overall plan but it’s often the little maneuvers as described by Purdy & Soltis that you use to carry it out.

Purdy's books are excellent from what I have seen. The only surprising thing is that he is not better known and respected as a chess author. I am glad that most of his writings have become available in algebraic editions.