The late Simon Webb had a wonderful idea a while ago, to record chessplayers of different strengths for 10 minutes while they considered a chess position.  He published them in Barry Wood's old CHESS magazine in the 1970s, and I've used them before with groups.  We tried this last week; I gave them all this position:

Fridrik Olafsson
Svetozar Gligoric

Los Angeles (1)
1963

No. 1

Position for analysis from Simon Webb

* [Webb] b - - 0 15

Black to move.  [Take 10 minutes yourself, if you like.]

Without being able to record them all, I asked people to write down their thinking while they were doing it.  I then asked people to describe, not what they were thinking about (specifics), but how they were thinking about it.  If they found this difficult, I got them to just say their moves, then I tried to re-describe their thinking in terms of process, as follows.

Player A's actual comments:	What I wrote down:
I felt uncomfortable as Black and very cramped I wanted to swap off pieces	General assessment of position Plan based on position

Here are their comments:

Player B Is there anything easy for me to pick off? Can I make a safe advance?	Player C Threats for each side Positional objectives: how can I improve my game, disrupt my opponent's? Compare pairs of pieces: do I have a piece that needs help? Candidate moves selection Analyse forced/semi-forced sequences Choose
Player D Threats Combinations for either side Structure Long-term plans	Player E Threats against me (Hold the centre) = plan based on position Defensive responses Short-term plans Medium attacking plans Long-term plans
Player F "Overprotect e5" (=plan based on overall positional assessment)	Player G Material? Strength of material? Strong/Weak pawns/squares? Potential long-term features Static/dynamic assessments

Now, there's nothing to say that a different 7 players might have come up with something totally different, nor that the same 7 players might not do something totally different when faced with a different position. Also, I don't know if they would recognise the descriptions I gave them... Anyhow, all good food for thought:

1. Of the 7, 4 didn't mention looking for White's threats.  Ever get surprised by a blow of your opponent?  Often?  Is that because you don't routinely check for threats?

2. I think you can put these 7 in order of organisation, but, without wishing to embarrass anyone, I think this order would be different to order of playing strength.  I suspect that if the strongest players were more organised, they would be better, rather than concluding that thinking organisation is irrelevant.

3. From the various models given in the session, I think a couple come close to Purdy... if we listened long enough, maybe we would discover they were doing a lot of what Heisman says too.

4. I rather warmed to player B: once they get some error-checking in, they have the basic survival kit for beginners down pat.

5. Player C was just awesome... Lots of appropriate questions used in sequence.

No.1: Fridrik Olafsson Svetozar Gligoric Los Angeles (1) 1963 [Black to move]	No.2 Rudolf Teschner Leonid Stein Stockholm (9) 1962 [White to move]
b - - 0 15	w - - 0 28
Mikhail Tal Paul Keres Curacao (2) 1962	Victor Kortchnoi Fridrik Olafsson Stockholm 1962
[Black to move] b - b3 0 32	[White to move] w - - 0 12
Miroslav Filip Efim Geller Curacao (25) 1962	Pal Benko Paul Keres Curacao (27) 1962
[White to move] w - - 0 46	[Black to move] b - - 0 42