From: mad4@ellis.uchicago.edu (Bill Maddex)
Subject: Re: Strategy or Tactics?
Reply-To: mad4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Pranksters for Peace
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 22:29:31 GMT

I've religiously avoided this topic until now, because 1)I don't know enough
about chess to have any real business talking about it, and 2)I don't care,
but since Bruce has got into it this time, and he was the first guy who ever
made me think about it, I figgered I might as well waste some bandwidth.

Thirteen years ago, about a year and a half after I'd learned how the pieces
moved I was about a 1500 strength player.  Northwest Chess had an interview 
w/Bruce which I haven't read since then, but which I'll quote/paraphrase
extensively because it effected me a lot.  The interviewer commented that
in an earlier mag Yasser had said something like 'my opponent was known as a
dangerous tactician--positional chess was the right choice'  Bruce replied 
to this by saying 1)don't chicken out against a tactician, 2)always double
check your analysis and 3)tactics will always favor the better position.
Being a patzer I didn't properly appreciate the third point.  Later Bruce
said that he felt teaching a beginner tactics first would make him "a cheapo
artist, albeit w/a positional veneer.  I think this is how Yasser plays, but
since I don't really understand how he plays chess I won't comment..."  He
also talked about the importance of studying endings.  After reading this,
I decided I was a strategic player, even though I didn't know dick about
strategy, so I'd get positions I thought were positionally won and lose them
because I didn't have a clue.  This happened to me a lot in tournaments, but
seldom in blitz, although I didn't figger out until years later that it was
because I didn't try to think strategically in blitz, but just took pieces.
Two things helped to get me out of this rut:  1)an article by Yasser entitled
'A Study of Strategies' in which he said he initially felt 'it was all "sit
on him until you catch him w/a tactic," but then I realized that my opponents
were trying to reach some goal--which meant I had to be also--impossible!'
and 2)actually reading a chess book cover to cover, to be specific Tal's 
Winning Chess Combinations.  These two events led me not to worry too much
about the abstract but just to try to get my pieces working, though it took
me a few more years to get that down.  

I've never studied systematically, but the above got me up close to 2000, when
a series of articles in NWC by Bruce and Suttles gave me some positional 
bearing.  Since then I've actually managed to improve some, though I still 
don't understand enough.  

So how does all this bear on strategy v tactics?  Well, when I find an old
scoresheet I can see I didn't have any real sense of strategy, but I could
still win.  Now that I know a little, I feel like I can identify some of 
the strategic mistakes I used to make, though I still make tons I don't
understand.

I think the right attitude toward strategy is Suba's.  In Dynamic Chess 
Strategy he says:

		"Strategy is not the opposite of tactics; it is the
		theory of tactis.  It tries to clarify the general
		lines of tactics as well as its directions.  In other
		words, it gives pointers for discovering plans, and 
		plans, in their turn, direct the moves in given 
		positions."

He goes on like this, pointing out that both strategic and tactical rules
are directed toward find the correct move.  As Bruce said in that interview:
though a mistake is strategic, the refutation will always be tactical, one
may lose a piece moving it to a bad square, etc.

Suba points out that Steinitiz's rules were devised in a time when there
were few strong players, and no one would know how to answer a Steinitzian
plan.  That's no longer the case, so strategy is a lot more complicated.

So what should you study to improve?  Don't ask me, I've never studied.
Suba's book is great, but I only recommend it to people over 2000.  Weaker
players should definitely study tactics.

I may post more, more coherently I hope, along w/a couple games later if
anyone really cares about this issue.

MADNESS