What I mean is, how often when you're playing a game does your opponent play something good or strong, yet you never considered it? Obviously when the opponent makes an awful blunder it's probably not a move you thought about, that really wasn't the idea behind the question.

I'm curious because in my own games I noticed I'm pretty awful at considering my opponent's plans and ideas, and even when I think I've got him figured out, I'm often wrong. Just wondering what some of y'all think on the issue or if there is any good advice because I'm tired of thinking hard to find a plan, only to see that my opponent stops it with a move I didn't consider.

When playing a stronger player, this happens to me often when I see a move that either seems new or looks 'interesting' to me. My opponent's reply usually lets me know why it doesn't get played or why it really was bad.

There was also a player that I played 3 games against some years ago on gameknot that was around my strength. Normally, I can predict more or less what I will be facing, but against this player, he constantly made moves I never thought about. They weren't blunders and they weren't !! moves that proved my moves to be blunders. We were just on completely different wavelengths somehow, and yet each of us got by ok.

In correspondence style chess, I will often enough flip the board to try analyzing the position from the other guy's point of view. I find this very helpful for figuring out the plans and motifs that were there that I was missing before. Not only does this help me verify that I'm not missing something, it is also helpful when I'm stumped and need a new idea for the position.

Do you have any position in mind that you recall being surprised in? Maybe there's a certain tactical or positional idea that you need to work on.

Btw, here's the game I played against that guy mentioned above where I had the most trouble predicting moves into the future (iirc). We had 10 days per move. I don't even remember what I was thinking at the time (the game finished almost 4 years ago), but I do remember having lots of wasted analysis.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=56522
(I know I messed up near the end there more than once, and while the final position should be a draw, he definitely made it easy, both by the move he played and by the draw offer.)

I suggest you go over a game from the pros and replay the game on a chessboard. In the middle of the game, pause for a while and get a pen and paper. Write down the combinations you see that you should move if you were the one playing that game. Maybe you could have 6-10 combinations written. In those combinations analyse each and chose what for you is the best move. Compare that to actual game and see where you at. This is a very tedious process but it greatly helped me a lot!