"Try not to mechanically think during chess game" advised Josh Waitzkin. Thinking is the way to make decisions, but having knowledge to make the best move is the only 'fuel' to thinking! Here are some advice for you to benefit; More than once I've read here in the group that opening should be learned (if at all) later, after you master tactics, game ends etc. Suggested book by Jim Roe "Reassessing Your Chess " by Silman starts with game ends?! But the problem is that in the order to properly learn thinking or any other aspect of the game, you have to know opening. (does that make any sense??) I'll quote Professor Aleksey Bartashnikov (Chess Strategy Course CDs with ChessBase): "The opening is a basis on which the whole chess building leans. A well played opening is a precondition for success in the middlegame. And on the contrary, mistakes at the beginning of the game can result in a fast and unexpected defeat. What is necessary to avoid these m...
“Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack”(Wilhelm Steinitz)