The experience of intuition in Chess is often like the falling of dominoes.

The patterns in a position trigger ideas which trigger decisions. There's a flow to the thoughts, one we naturally want to go along with. And one that we can find ourselves in without any awareness of it.

We're preparing for a big kingside attack, everything is looking good. Then our opponent moves a pawn in the center. Before we know it, our entire sense of the position is reduced to thinking about that pawn and what to do about it. Do we take, or do we push?

The answer might be to do neither, to ignore it and continue with our attack. But that isn't an option in our brain. The entire scope of our thinking comes down to "take or push".

Our eyes see the pawn move, our intuition gets excited, and it pulls in our deeper thinking mind to work out what to do about the pawn.

Our intuition doesn't ask, "what should we do in the position?" It asks, "what should we do about the pawn?" And our deeper thinking brain starts thinking about that and that alone.

These things happen because of how attention works. Specifically, that we have no attention on what doesn't have our attention.

When we fixate on that pawn move, it's not that we've decided to pause our kingside attack. It's that the entire idea of the kingside attack temporarily vanishes from existence. As far as our brain is concerned, "take or push" are our only options.

When we're stuck in the flow of intuition, we aren't aware of it. So we can't consciously do anything to pull ourselves out it.

The only thing that we can rely on in that situation is our habits. Actions that are as automatic as intuition itself.

We need to build a habit that helps us double check intuition's suggestions. Something that will put our deeper thinking self in charge for just a moment before we touch the piece.

When I had the 500-elo-in-6-weeks jump that kickstarted this crazy journey I'm on, I built one of these habits.

I knew I needed something during games to help me zoom out and not get caught up in my instinctive reactions to my opponent's moves.

I needed to ask myself a sequence of questions on every move. Ones that specifically addressed the sorts of things I tended to miss.

The questions I chose were:

• is the piece that just moved defended?
• did that move leave anything else undefended?
• what is that move doing in the position?

But asking 3 questions on every move felt like a lot! So I simplified it. Instead of remembering to ask 3 questions every turn, I picked a phrase that I could repeat to myself and that could represent those 3 questions.

Something fun, that would act as a trigger to put my deeper thinking mind in charge. You'll think it's ridiculous, but stick with me on this.

I chose a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1990 film, Kindergarten Cop. After every one of my opponent's moves, I would look at the piece they just moved and ask it, "Who is your daddy and what does he do?"

The ridiculousness of it made me smile on every move. It helped with emotional control, and reminded me that Chess is just a game (albeit an important one).

It acted as a safety net, catching my intuition-led bad decisions before they occurred. It didn't catch all of them, but it doesn't need to catch all of them to have a huge impact on your game.

We can't trust that our intuition will always have the right ideas. And we can't trust that we'll never find ourselves freewheeling. So we need to build a safety net habit like this one.

Here's how you can do that.

1. Pick your question(s)

Your questions should be unique to you and the sorts of errors you tend to make in your Chess.

When I first created my 3 questions, I had a tendency to trust my opponents too much, regularly missing when they made scary-looking moves that were actually blunders. My first 2 questions were focused on helping me see through those situations. My 3rd question was about making sure I understood my opponents' goals with each move.

Your questions might be the same as mine were or they might be different. As we get stronger, you'll need to change them again and again. But pick some to start.

When you're picking your questions, the first 2 should be very simple and rapid to answer, and only 1 should require real thought. Use the first two to catch simple errors you tend to make, and the last to help you zoom out and remind yourself of what's happening in the wider position before you make your move.

Analyze your games to find the sorts of intuitive mistakes you make, or work with a coach to identify the safety net questions you need most in your game.

Once you have your 1-3 questions ready, move on to step 2.

2. Pick a trigger phrase

Choose a phrase that's fun, meaningful to you, and a little ridiculous. Something that will make you smile, and that will remind you to ask your questions.

Mine was from Kindergarten Cop. I have a coaching student who uses "Dive, dive, dive" from one of the old war films. Another who references Aliens. Another who repeats something a teacher they had 30 years ago used to say to them.

Make it fun. Make it memorable. It only needs to make sense to you. And the more fun and ridiculous it is, the more likely you'll enjoy saying it, remember to say it, and get a little positive emotional boost every time you say it.

3. Use it on every move

And I mean every single move. Use it the first time you see a new position. Use it on move 1 of every game. Do it literally every time you see your opponent move a piece.

If you skip doing it in the opening because you "know these moves", then you'll likely forget to kick it off again in time to stop the mistakes.

If your goal is to get between your intuition and your decisions, you either do it every single move or you may as well not do it at all.

This needs to be a habit, as automatic as your intuition itself. You see a Chess position, you do the routine.

When you've put the time into training this, it will become an excellent safety net for you. It'll help you pull out of intuition's grasp and see things in their wider context. It will help you to put your deeper thinking mind in charge when you need it most.

Treat your intuition like an enthusiastic friend rated 200 points below you.

It's loud, insistent, shouting over your shoulder while you're trying to play. But it means well. It's trying to help.

Guide it, teach it the things it needs to know, and accept that it's there. Listen for when it can help you.

Then make yourself resilient, train your brain so you can listen to your friend's suggestions without always surrendering to them.

And, finally, build yourself a safety net habit, to catch you in those times your friend starts to take over. Even the best friendships need boundaries.

When you get that right, your intuition might just become the asset all the Grandmasters consider it to be.