Eli5: how does a pro chess player see 10+moves ahead? What does that look like?
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For starters, they aren’t literally envisioning every possible position of the table. There’s more of those than there are atoms in the planet. They are only thinking “What are my opponent’s most likely next moves.” They think of two or three of the best possibilities, and think of what response they would play for each. This makes the math more manageable for a savant level mind. Then keeping track of what move they would make in response to each only adds one thing to remember, since they know what they will play.
They don’t play out every single path to the end, either. They might get three moves in and not like the possibilities, so they ditch the move that leads down that path. Only the final candidate moves are they thinking many turns out.
Finally, their ability to predict many turns out is not as reliable as a couple turns out, so they are constantly reassessing those predicted positions as they approach them.
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