Hello, Ms. Suzuki. I hear that in professional games the players read many moves ahead. I wonder if you could tell me just how many moves ahead professionals read. Consultation Two : Mr. Aizawa Hello, Mr. Aizawa. Thank you for your question. It’s hard to generalize about how many moves ahead we read. When you are thinking about the next move, there are a number of different choices. For each of these, there are then a number of different choices for the next move. Then for the next move after that . . . If you added up all the different branches, the total would probably be several dozen. However, among the different choices there are some moves that one’s intuition just tells one are no good, so one doesn’t actually read them. I’m sure that amateurs also would read several dozen moves if they developed their reading ability.