Author: Ingo Lindam
Date: 01:18:00 12/06/02
Go up one level in this thread
On December 05, 2002 at 20:31:41, Bob Durrett wrote: Hi Bob, I guess I will leave your 'GMs-in-a-box'-setting a little, when I say that for me to distinguish between "positional" and "tactical" has mainly nothing to do with the position, but with the way I make my decision about the best move or just the evaluation of the current position. 'Tactical' (for me) means to argue on basis of concrete variations and 'positional' on basis of (positional) features or pattern in the current position, the experiences with this kind of features,... You can also put that decissions based on exact knowledge into this class (of positional decissions) or give trhem a third class (exact knowledge about a position is really rare, but e.g. with help of EGTB you have it atleast for some positions, but also e.g. a mate position you can exactly evaluate). So 'tactical' decissions are always based on 'knowledge based' decissions/evaluations or 'positional based' decisions at the leaves of the search tree. Playing games you will not often make pure 'positional' decisions, but also make some 'tactical' thinking. So both will mix up in practical chess / playing games usally. So to when seperating everything in just this two classes, you will have you weight whether a decission it is more tactical or more positional. Just looking at a move that is played you can't say whether the decission is made 'tactical' or 'positional'. Also to sacrify a Bishop on h7 is not necessary (more) tactical in my opinion. You could look at the position and say there enough pieces attacking the black kingside and too less black pieces defending the king that I am sure, the king will be mated or atleast I will win enough material by this attack (or atleast a perpetual check will be reachable). You ofcourse could classify the positions whether there is a proofable tactical solution of it. Where you can proof such a solution the position could be called (more) tactical. But when you don't see a proof within a certain scope a position and you would like to call it a 'positional one' it might also be 'tactical', but you just need a deeper look into the search tree to see that. I guess you see that with my definition to distinguish between positional and tactical it strongly depends on who plays or makes the evaluation of a position or the decision for next move. So between human beings and the chess engines today there should be a natural difference, because of the different scope. And you can obviously find some positions that you can claim to be tactical. But to decide it is not tactical you have also to give a scope within that it is not tactical. Assume you have a full tree (just theoretically assume) then nothing positional will be left... everything turns into tactical proofable. So every position you name to be positional is just as long positional as you be not able to proof the tactical solution. Again: Every so called 'positional' position has a tactical solution. Just sometimes it is hidden too deep in the tree. Internette Gruesse, Ingo > >Imagine the following experiment: > >Several very strong chess players, preferably GMs, are put in a room and given >the task of categorizing a very large set of chess positions. Assume also that >they are willing participants. > >There is one large box filled with a large number of slips of paper. Each slip >will have a single chess position on it. No two slips of paper have the same >position. > >To obtain the positions on those slips of paper, a large number of positions >were previously selected, using some *completely* random process, from a large >database of high quality games. Being completely random, this process should >have produced roughly equal numbers of opening, middlegame, and endgame >positions. > >There are three large empty boxes, open at the top. One box is labeled >"tactical." Another box is labeled "positional." The third box is labeled "no >consensus reached within allotted time." > >The GMs are to try to reach a consensus. [No fair cheating!] They have a >reasonable amount of time to examine each position. All positions for which >consensus is not reached go in the box labeled "no consensus reached within >allotted time." Otherwise, if the consensus is that the position is "tactical," >the slip of paper goes into the box labeled "tactical." Finally, if consensus >is reached that a position is "positional," it goes into the box labeled >"positional." > >Would it not then reasonable to DEFINE positions in the "tactical" box to be >"tactical" and the positions in the "positional" box to be "positional"? I >believe that would be reasonable. > >I expect that, when all the slips had been examined, there would then be quite a >few slips in the "no consensus reached within allotted time" box. My >expectation is based on my perception that there are many positions that are, at >the same time, both "tactical" and "positional," or maybe halfway in between. > >What does this have to do with computer chess? > >A second experiment could then be performed. Each position in the "tactical" >box would be examined, this time, not by HUMANs but by the top chess engines. > >The purpose of the experiment would be to find tactical positions that presented >problems for the chess engines, requiring too much time for evaluation. > >The same could be done for the positional and indeterminate positions. > >What would be the findings of this experiment? > >If modern chess engines are good at evaluating tactical positions, then there >may be only a very few tactical positions found to be difficult for chess >computers. > >If chess engines are poor at evaluating positional positions, then there may >turn out to be a large number of positions found to be difficult for chess >computers. > >And what about the positions taken from the "no consensus reached within >allotted time" box? Your guess is as good as mine. > >Now, here is a test: [You have five seconds to answer.] What are the >definitions of tactical and positional positions? [Tick, tick, tick.] > >Bob D.
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