How to Evaluate Positions, Part #1

In my view, evaluating positions accurately is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as you climb the rating ladder in chess. Some players may be surprised to learn that there are simple methods they can follow to improve their evaluation skills significantly. The most important is knowing "canonical wins" (i.e., thematic positions), so that they can reuse the same ideas in other positions. When evaluating a position, I follow a simple method:

1. Think of the most similar position I'm familiar with and remember its evaluation.
2. Figure out what's different and how it modifies the previous evaluation and plans.

I'll give some concrete examples of how to do this with one of my favorite positions, the Najdorf Type II pawn structure. If you prefer video format, here's a YT video where I cover the same subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncNO1h1Rybg&t=27s

Canonical Win #1

This is an example of the most thematic knight vs. bishop battle I could think of. An easy yet very instructive win for White:

Canonical Win #2

Here's a slight variation of the previous example, just replacing the knight for the bishop. You may find it striking how the exact same evaluation is true, and same winning plan still works.

Worse Position #1

Now here's where it gets interesting. I took the previous position and "damaged it" slightly by misplacing a couple of White's pawns. You can immediately see the difference:

Worse Position #2

Here I took another approach, rather than misplacing pawns, I show a position where the queenside is blocked. Again, the evaluation changes accordingly since the winning plans from the canonical wins no longer apply.

Worse Position #3

Here's a more extreme case, now the advantage is completely gone, just by having pushed the g-pawn all the way to g5, creating opportunities for a pawn break:

Worse Position #4

For the final example, I remove the bishops. But since the bishop on d5 was no longer better than the bishop on e7 in the previous example, it's not surprising that the evaluation basically remains the same at this point.

Conclusion

Now you have a method you can follow to evaluate positions, by recycling your understanding from other similar positions. Let's be honest, you still need a foundational understanding of a wide variety of canonical examples, but we can cover that in a future blog post.
Feel free to comment with questions or topic requests!