Eli5: how does a pro chess player see 10+moves ahead? What does that look like?
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In addition to the good answers already received, openings are special. The pieces always start in the same position. (Well, there are variants of chess where the starting positions are randomized within certain guidelines to mix things up, but I assume you’re talking about normal chess in this question).
So given that you know where the pieces start, there are only so many “first moves” and “second moves” and so on. There’s a lot of research into chess openings (heck, I’m barely a decent amateur and I have a book of openings on my bookshelf from back in days when we tended to print things out on flattened dead trees). Pro chess players study these openings and memorize them to various degrees. Each player is likely to have favorite openings that they’ve memorized to greater depth. And if they know who their opponent will be, they may analyze their opponent’s tendencies and memorize some openings they’re likely to encounter to a greater depth (or at least a fresher recall) than they normally would.
So, a pro chess player can get what would feel to you or me like pretty far into the game before they really have to start “seeing ahead”.
Endings are similar. There are more possibilities, because a lot happens in the midgame and the pieces can end up in a lot of places. But once there are only a certain number of pieces on the board, a pro chess player can do a good job of figuring out all the possibilities, because there are only so many left. And they’ve seen a lot of chess, so they can do a lot with just pattern recall.
The midgame is really where your question lies (and where the other answers you’ve received matter most). I just wanted to mention the beginning and the end of the game as special cases.
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