Author: Otello Gnaramori
Date: 00:36:04 07/24/01
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On July 23, 2001 at 17:54:26, Kevin Stafford wrote: >>The point made above was just to stress the importance of the tactics , let me >>add the following inspired words by I.Marin : >> >>"Chess is ONLY moves in a chessboard, chess is only tactics. If you calculate >>thoroughly enough you will beat Kasparov and everybody else because "positional >>mistakes" simply don't exist: they are simply tactical errors with long term >>consequences." >> >>Best Regards > >While Ignacio is correct that chess is only tactics in the most abstract sense, >this quote is also slightly misleading. This is because both humans and >computers have a finite tactical window beyond which they cannot accurately >calculate (at least in a reasonable amount of time). It has been shown that >increasing the depth of this window is difficult, as the search tree grows >exponentially with each ply increase. It is for this reason that positional >considerations are in fact relevant. I think that the above consideration is applicable to the humans, since the comps can easily manage huge search trees and have tactical skills far beyond any human player. > >I define a positional move as one that leads to no obvious, immediate tactic, >but is speculative in that it might lead to tactics which are beyond the current >tactical window. No one is disputing that tactics are not extremely important >(and in my opinion, are the very soul of chess), but I do believe that playing >for tactics alone will put you at a disadvantage to a person or machine with >positional understanding, unless your tactical window is sufficiently deeper >than theirs. Exactly , If I can see one move deeper than you, you can have a fantastic strategy but at the end I will be the winner. It is for this very reason that there has been a shift in chess >programming away from exclusively fast searchers towards engines with more >"chess knowledge" in their evaluation functions. > >-Kevin There are different "schools of thought" about the above point: you have to get an eval that doesn't slow down too much the search speed (i.e. not too complex), otherwise the chess knowledge is of no avail , since you have not enough deepness of search. Regards.
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