Does tactics help with strategy?

Originally posted by Erekose
I'd put it this way - tactics are indespensible for executing a strategy correctly.

Basically, if you mess up the tactics, no strategy is good enough, and virtually all winning strategies have tactical elements necessary to take the full point home.

People have a hard time understanding tactics.

They think it has to do with material only. However, material is a strategic element and having more material isn't necessarily always best just like doubled pawns aren't always bad.

Tactics are maneuvers designed to give strategic superiority whether it is material or weaknesses in the enemy camp or checkmating the king which is the ultimate strategic goal. Strategy is really understanding and judgement... you have to know what the correct immediate goal is.

For example, some people see weak pawns and just try to attack them but the correct immediate goal is to make them immobile first. The manuever that allows you to make them immobile is a tactic.

Tactics are to orchestra as strategy is to conductor... tactics are the moves and strategy is the guiding ideas behind the moves.

Edit: The greats know which strategic goals to go after based on the position,this is the key, you have to look at the position and break it down until you have some ideas on what to do... you won't always have the best or clearest idea but it is better and more fulfilling than just pushing wood.
Sometimes there will be some weakness combined with some loose pieces and it leads to dazzling combinations... you will never create these without knowing how to assess the position.

Originally posted by lausey
After doing more tactical puzzles I find that with more games, after having left standard openings and databases, I seem to be more successful with moves that "feels" right. Even though I still do not yet see any direct tactical opportunities.

It is fair to say that practising tactics help with strategical play?

What move to play next? And what move to make next in one’s development?

Getting better means to me to change constantly, so knowing thyself is essential: knowing what you do, how you are doing it, how you think, how you solve problems and how you impose problems is essential. Individual moves, immediate plans, the quality of your own character are all essential. Strong GMs have a mental database of more than 8.000 positions but they don’t calculate deeper or longer variations than the average Jack although a prior selection has been made from candidate plans (rather than moves). Therefore, in a given position first you decide whether you will go for a queenside minority attack or for a central consolidation etc. and solely then you move –thus I am not talking about a simple choice between two next moves. Thinking and verbalizing with specific protocols and thus calculation, to me it works. As well as independence of emotions that disturb my thought process, as well as the implementation of certain patterns of organized thinking.

Imitation is good, we study from the GMs. Fantasy is essential after having studied our theory as regards our repertoire, the middle game themes, the endgame techniques -and we have to solve puzzles and to play constantly. Methinks the fruit of studies is imitation, the fruit of imitation is fantasy, the fruit of fantasy is creativity, the fruit of creativity is innovation, the fruit of innovation is a clear mind free of turbidity and filth, the fruit of clear mind is the ability to create paradoxes that can hardly be solved by the opponent, the fruit of overcoming the paradoxes that are imposed from the opponent is nothing but a product of the evaluation of the mind, the evaluation of the mind is always a way to accept everything just the way it is.
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
What move to play next? And what move to make next in one’s development?

Getting better means to me to change constantly, so knowing thyself is essential: knowing what you do, how you are doing it, how you think, how you solve problems and how you impose problems is essential. Individual moves, immediate plans, the quality of your own character are a ...[text shortened]... he mind, the evaluation of the mind is always a way to accept everything just the way it is.
😵

tis beautiful, even the great Tal himself lamented that at the heart of his creativity
there was imitation, a position recalled or seen from elsewhere which tinged his
'intuition', some detail may have been slightly different, a pawn in the way, a
different placement of a piece, but the elements were there and accessible from
some other experience. He recalls that Lasker himself lamented that he wished to
forget all his theory and play with an uncluttered mind, free from preconceptions
and notions. To think in terms of plans seems to me that moves will automatically
suggest themselves to fit into the scheme, this planning is dependent upon a correct
evaluation of the position and its elements, dynamic and static. Many an art student
has expended a fruitful session in some museum imitating the masters and only
after he gleans from this experience some relevant detail can he assimilate the
elements and forge his own. Creativity is one thing realities quite another.

Let me join in this "chess wrestlemania". What are combinations? What are openings? What is the middlegame?

Originally posted by enrico20
Let me join in this "chess wrestlemania". What are combinations? What are openings? What is the middlegame?

1. "A combination is a forced variation with sacrifice" -M. Botvinnik.

2. The opening is the part of the game where you can buy lots of books to tell you exactly what you're supposed to do.

3. The middlegame is the part of the game where a book can't tell you exactly what you're supposed to do.

Originally posted by PhySiQ
On a good day I've bested some of those thinner air breathers. On bad days I've been swindled by the lowliest teenhundreds. I'm still average.

RJ isn't anything.

and tactics+strategy are a yin and yang. Everyone here covered it well. Its an impossible essence to fully understand.

Q

I would say RJ is "A Thing".

There is a lot of talk in this and other threads about tactics. However in my opinion most sub-2000 chessplayers at RHP have a high degree of tactical blindness. In better positions, people don't play winning tactics but simply go on collecting more material where they can. And in weaker positions they lack awareness of tactics for their opponents.

For many chessplayers, the game is all about grabbing more material - they just don't look for tactics beyond a very basic level.

Originally posted by Kegge
I would say RJ is "A Thing".

I stand corrected.

Q

Originally posted by geo86012
There is a lot of talk in this and other threads about tactics. However in my opinion most sub-2000 chessplayers at RHP have a high degree of tactical blindness. In better positions, people don't play winning tactics but simply go on collecting more material where they can. And in weaker positions they lack awareness of tactics for their opponents.

For m ...[text shortened]... all about grabbing more material - they just don't look for tactics beyond a very basic level.

I'm sorry, but this is simply not true.

Don't mistake "overlooks a tactical point" with "doesn't look for a tactical point".
I would say that, for quite a lot of people here, tactical points that do not involve direct material gain are something they are quite well aware of and do try to hunt for - but often fail to achieve. It's quite true to say that most of us on this site frequently fail spot checks, but that is not a good reason to claim that we just do not look for them - we do look, but we also overlook.

Richard

I'd say both geo86012 ans Shall Blue are right (they just different ways of putting it.)

If loose material is up for grabs then often a better move (if there is one)
is not played whilst they grab the loot.

Taking a loose piece is actually a tactic at it's very basic level.
There are numerous cases of loose bits, including Queens, not being taken.

Primers often start off with positions like this explaining how a piece moves
and how it can capture.


Which pieces can the Black Knight take?

You can forgive a someone taking a Queen and not playing a mate in three.
However in the next Blog I will be showing about 8 positions where players
think they are losing and take a perpetual check missing the fact they have
a checkmate in the position.

Now that is bad play. There is no excuse for that one.
They are not grabbing material, they have a mate staring at them.
(In some cases in one move.) This is the bones of one of them.


Black played Bg2+ and Bh3+ and it was drawn.

I think the lad followed the Check all Checks war cry to the letter.
His rule of thimb should be: "Check all Checks one may be Mate."

After playing a lot of games on RHP you get a feel for what sort of moves a player at a given ranking is capable of finding. For example, a 1400-1600 player. These players will guard their pieces and pawns carefully and generally they are successful at not dropping pieces with outright blunders. They will play forks and pins if possible and guard against their opponent using them. They are generally lax about taking the initiative - they'll not try for the initiative if it requires giving up material. (And there are the "turtles", who will throw up a wall of pawns in the opening, even with White, and hide behind them for the rest of the game.)
You will rarely see a 1400-1600 player use zwischenzugs, or make a clear attempt to stop an opponent's zwischenzug. And if a player never uses a particular tactic nor guards against it, likely it's because he isn't looking for it.

Chess involves problem solving and good problem solvers look at a problem using various level of detail. The term "abstraction" is often used in this context and it is an important skill to be able to "zoom in or out" of a problem appropriately.

e.g. design a car. It makes no sense to worry about the details of the engine until you've decided on the main purpose, size, etc. of the car. Once you have high level plans then you look closer at the details ("zoom in" ) . And then, sometimes the details reveal that our plan is not feasible and we have to revise our plans ("zoom out" ) .

To me, chess strategy and tactics represent the different ends of the problem solving spectrum in chess. I don't get hung up on precise definitions of where one ends and the other starts. I just try to have some awareness of when my thinking is moving in one direction or the other. For example, maybe I "zoomed into" calculating some tactics too soon before weighing up alternative strategies.

To answer the initial question, I think awareness of tactics can help strategy. I remember solving some tactical problems that utilised the queen and knight working as a pair, including typical mating patterns, etc. And since some higher level planning can involve which pieces to try to exchange or not, assessing how the pieces may be used in subsequent tactical operations is useful.

..., I seem to be more successful with moves that "feels" right. Even though I still do not yet see any direct tactical opportunities.

Hi...

You are spot on. A collection of tactical patterns in your head will naturally steer you into placing the pieces on more threatening, or "active", squares. You'll increase the potential of your pieces. Piece activity is an essential component of assessing a position, and so of strategy.

Once you can sense one sides pieces to be more active than another, you are probably ready to tackle strategic set pieces like the isolated queens pawn (IQP) positions. This set up arises from a whole bunch of openings, so having it your toolbox makes a good first building block in your strategic repertoire.

yours, Marcus

Chess cannot be put in a box. There is no one waving a flag in a position that would say this "find a move that is winning in x moves". Alekhine once said To win against me, you must beat me three times: in the opening, the middlegame and the endgame.

How many times have we seen where a player has got an advantage, fails to convert the advantage or gets the game overturned?

What separates beginners, club players and masters is their understanding of the facets of the game. Strategy, tactics are only a piece of the pie.

Love the term "chess wrestlemania" lol!