I think I misunderstood what "calculating" means in a chess setting. I thought it meant checking the current position of the pieces and making sure you are not about to be attacked.

But googling it suggests it's more about thinking of the value of each move relative to others. If that's the case I'm not actually bad at that.

> I can tell you that it's extremely hard to not just take computer's suggestion at every move.

Is that how it works? The computer just basically plays and shows you some moves it likes?

That's not what I meant, I was thinking that you tell the computer something like: I want to capture piece X using Y 10 to 20 moves from now, perhaps by going via this direction. Tell me the best series of moves to get there while avoiding traps.

Or even better give it 2 or 3 such scenarios and have it tell you how dangerous each one would be so you can pick one.

Basically really narrow down the permutations the computer has to calculate.