Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 14:55:39 02/06/03
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On February 06, 2003 at 16:53:24, William H Rogers wrote: >In what I have learned, Tatics are the ability to make as many captures as >possible and to defend against attacks. >Stratigy on the other hand looks for postional plays for controlling the board >and limiting your opponents abilities. >The trick is to combine the two for optimum results. >You may get a hundred different definitions for this question. >Bill Here is how I understand things. Chess is 100% tactics. If a computer could search from the opening position to the end of the game, there would be no such thing as "strategy" or "positional knowledge". I don't have a definition of tactics, but I have examples of what tactics are, and what strategy is, in non-chess activities. Let's say that I am a military sharp shooter, and I can shoot my gun with 99% accuracy even from very long ranges. I can run into a room and take out half a dozen people before anyone else can get a shot off. I am a very good "tactical" shooter. So let's say that you and I are trying to shoot each other. You know that I am a very good shot, so you hear me coming, and you hide in a dark corner. I walk in the room and never see you, and you fire off two shots, and the second shot gets me. You won because you had a better strategy, even though you missed on the first shot. In baseball, if a pitcher can throw very hard and is very accurate, he is a very good tactical pitcher. A pitcher who can not throw very hard, and has average accuracy, might do some "strategical" things to help himself. Maybe the pitcher hits the batter on purpose the first time up. The next time, the batter backs off the plate, and the pitcher gets him out easily. The hitter may have been a very good "tactical" hitter (very accurate with his swing, very powerful, etc.), but he was unable to get a good swing at the pitches because he was in a bad position (backed off the plate). The same applies in chess. You could have the greatest tactical mind ever known to man, but if he is in a very bad position, there is little hope for him. Strategy is only useful when the two entities playing are imperfect. Think about it. If a computer announces mate in 20, then the computer will play "perfectly", so no amount of strategy or positional play is going to help you. Strategy is an attempt to make up for our shortcomings as poor tactical players (at least compared to the theoretical "perfect" tactical player, like a computer in the tablebases). Over time, people noticed that certain patterns yielded good opportunities for tactics, and eventually people began to realize things like, "when your pawns are arranged this way, it usually ends up being a hinderance many moves later." That is why humans can still compete with computers. They can look at these "strategies" and have a rough idea of whether things will be good or bad in 20, 30, 40, 50+ moves. No computer can compete with that (except when in tablebases). Anyway, there is some food for thought.
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