Aagaard's 3 questions are a great way of thinking, and one I've tried to use. However, it's my opinion that to use them well requires some level of skill and knowledge. Will the typical 1200 be able to spot weaknesses and know how to exploit them? Not sure. Checklists are just there for folks whose skill level aren't quite there yet. Would you agree?
You're correct that using these three questions requires some skill and knowledge to begin with. You have to understand what constitutes a weakness, how to identify which pieces are not doing much and understand how your opponent might want to play their position.
That being said, I do think these questions can be useful to consider for lower-rated players even if they're not always identifying the correct things. A lot of players don't consider any of these ideas when they're trying to come up with a plan and asking/answering these few questions can at least get them looking in the right direction.
I would say that in a holistic sense it is more important to implement an "observe" -> "calculate" -> "plan" -> "blunder-check" sequence of thinking process. Probably these three Aagaard questions would fall under the "plan" part of this sequence.
Aagaard's 3 questions are a great way of thinking, and one I've tried to use. However, it's my opinion that to use them well requires some level of skill and knowledge. Will the typical 1200 be able to spot weaknesses and know how to exploit them? Not sure. Checklists are just there for folks whose skill level aren't quite there yet. Would you agree?
You're correct that using these three questions requires some skill and knowledge to begin with. You have to understand what constitutes a weakness, how to identify which pieces are not doing much and understand how your opponent might want to play their position.
That being said, I do think these questions can be useful to consider for lower-rated players even if they're not always identifying the correct things. A lot of players don't consider any of these ideas when they're trying to come up with a plan and asking/answering these few questions can at least get them looking in the right direction.
I would say that in a holistic sense it is more important to implement an "observe" -> "calculate" -> "plan" -> "blunder-check" sequence of thinking process. Probably these three Aagaard questions would fall under the "plan" part of this sequence.