GM Alex Yermolinsky on Go

[topazg]

At the end-game of chess you need to take decisions like whether to build a fortress and go for a draw, or which side to proceed with pawns, whether or not to exchange a knight for a bishop, etc... These are strategic decisions rather than tactical. They don't involve much move reading (chess players call it calculation) but experience and/or knowledge.

Partly yes. Many rook and pawn endings require a huge amount of tactical calculation though. At least half of chess endings are 50/50 between strategy and tactics.

In the opening, the obvious strategy is to develop your pieces, and occupy the center. Another obvious strategy is for example, if you gain an advantage in terms of pieces, try to force your opponent to exchange pieces so that your advantage gets more emphasized. But all these are well known strategies even by beginners and are not much debated. Other than those you don't have to take so many strategical decisions in chess opening and mid-game.

This I think is not true. Strategy may be limited to that for weak players, but even at average club level you will consistently lose if that is the only midgame strategy you understand. Minor piece imbalances, good squares, good diagonals, open and semi open files, control of the 7th rank, support points for knights, access to the centre, mobility and how to create all of these in favourable circumstances require much more than sequence calculation. You can understand the e5 is a key square for control without reading any sequences, and play accordingly - this decision is entirely strategic.

In chess, the strategical decisions of mid-game are already almost taken (by the basic knowledge).

Only if you don't understand mid-game chess strategy

[dfan]

I don't find it that useful to compare the strategy/tactics ratio of chess and go - they're just completely different games. They both have an immense amount of strategy and an immense amount of tactics, and anyone who claims otherwise probably doesn't know the game in question very well.

That said, I would say that chess is slightly more tactical. If I play a go game with someone significantly weaker, many of their moves will be obviously terrible, and I'll hardly even have to think in order to take advantage of them. But if I play a chess game with someone significantly weaker, and they make a move that "smells funny", I have to do more concrete calculation to ensure that I'm not missing some trick.

Both games are incredibly rich and it makes me sad when people disparage or overly simplify one of them.

(Just to show that I'm at least mediocre at both, my ratings are 1800 USCF, 4k AGA)

[entropi]

This I think is not true. Strategy may be limited to that for weak players, but even at average club level you will consistently lose if that is the only midgame strategy you understand. Minor piece imbalances, good squares, good diagonals, open and semi open files, control of the 7th rank, support points for knights, access to the centre, mobility and how to create all of these in favourable circumstances require much more than sequence calculation. You can understand the e5 is a key square for control without reading any sequences, and play accordingly - this decision is entirely strategic.

Ok, these are strategic decisions but all the issues you mention depend heavily on tactical situations. I mean much heavier than in the Go.

If I have to make an analogy with go, the issues you mention are similar to "second line is the line of defeat, fourth line is the line of victory". Of course these are also part strategy but there is much more in go.

It's difficult to explain but what I mean is the following: It does not do any good to know that this diagonal is strategically important if the tactics does not allow you to control it. Of course you can argue that this is also the case in go. But the probability in chess that the tactics do not allow you to implement your strategic decision, is much higher than in go.

As a result, knowing that e5 is strategically important in chess is less helpful (because of tactical complexity) than knowing that crawling along the second line is bad in go.

That's what I mean. Otherwise I am of course not that out of my mind such that I argue there is no opening strategy involved in chess

Edit: If you see it that way, the whole opening theory in chess is a matter of strategy rather than tactics. How can one argue that it doesn't exist? The discussion is the relative importance of the strategic concepts compared to the tactical calculations.

[Bartleby]

I agree with dfan that tactics play a bigger role in chess than in Go, because there is less opportunity to recover from a tactical mistake in chess. (Fewer moves in a game, fewer pieces so that each piece has a relatively big value, etc.)

I also agree with him that, at least for human players, there is a big strategic/positional aspect to chess.

When you start out playing chess, the game is basically almost all tactics because you make many basic tactical mistakes, any one of which can be decisive. However, when you reach a certain level and no longer make so many basic tactical mistakes, the strategical/positional factors start to become more and more important. I have seem many, many games between strong players won by positional means without any complicated tactics at all. There have been some world-class chessplayers who play chess in a style roughly analogous to that of Lee Chang Ho.

Interestingly, one thing that very strong chessplayers seem to share with very strong Go players is their superior judgment in evaluating positions they reach at the end of their analysis. At a New York Open Chess Tournament in the '80s, I sat in the analysis room next to former World Chamption Boris Spassky and GM Kevin Spraggett as they analyzed their game. They would analyze out a tactical line and get to a position where the tactics had quieted down and Spassky would just say very quickly something like "No, this endgame is worse for Black" or "Black has too strong an attack here." Spraggett, who was a pretty young GM at the time as I recall, was clearly not as sure about the evaluations as Spassky, and kept trying to get Spassky to explain his conclusions. Spassky didn't seem to be calculating tactics at all in judging these end positions; he was just going by feel.

[topazg]

If you see it that way, the whole opening theory in chess is a matter of strategy rather than tactics. How can one argue that it doesn't exist? The discussion is the relative importance of the strategic concepts compared to the tactical calculations.

I agree, but even just that is a question way above my level in both games to answer honestly. My personal feeling is if you put two USCF 2000 rated players together to play 20 games, at least half of the decided games will be due to tactical errors. If you put a USCF 2400 and USCF 1600 player together, all 20 games will be won through strategic superiority.

To me, this parallels very closely to Go. I do believe more of my mental effort in chess is tactical than strategic - would that be the case if I was a titled master? I have no idea, but to say that Go has very limited tactics or that chess has very limited strategy I think is unjustifiable.

I agree wholeheartedly with dfan's assessment that to even compare them is almost impossible, and normally becomes disparaging to at least one of them.

[palapiku]

Well, this is also the same gentleman who's also quoted for:

Generally speaking, most chess players are boring, self-centered, money-oriented, poorly educated overgrown adolescents I couldn't care less about. With some exceptions, that includes the Linares crowd and all of the world's top twenty.

So I won't care so much for what he says.

Isn't this true?

[flOvermind]

Obviously, nobody managed to find the sarcasm in my post

But it still sparked an interesting discussion

[hackinger]

Hi,

well, that is the Alex Yermolinsky as we like him. The statement warrants a chuckle but not more.

I actually think that for both chess and go, tactics is everything, unless you are fairly strong. (I am not.)
Joseki, fights, reading, tesuji, invasions, reductions and boundary play sequences are tactics. Provided you know your tactics well, strategic thinking
allows you to select the right tactics for a given situation and devise a long term plan.

Of course some easy rules like playing in the corner first and some rules for side extensions can be considered strategy, but that is really easy stuff. (Similar rules exist for chess.) Play away from thickness may be a nice rule to remember for a weaker player like me, but unless one knows by experience and can read out (many of ) the tactical sequences a move will entail, it is just mechanical playing.

It is recommended for both chess and go, that one plays with a strategy in mind. Otherwise one starts to make random plays. However in both
games the tactical encounters will decide everything, unless both sides make only small tactical mistakes.

Cheers

hackinger

[sixko]

Find it hard to get a handle how anyone who has had some glimpse into the depths and magic of either game can openly disparage one over the other, even if they have ultimately chosen one over the other. Disparaging an entire community, is obviously ignorant and, most unfortunate.

i know too many formal chess players who learned how to play go who quit playing chess.
everytime i ask them why did you quit? they all answer same "because it is boring"

It's certainly possible that they were boring players.

I would take any strong statement by Yermolinsky (even about chess) with a grain of salt..

This ^

[sixko]

Came across this video this afternoon while doing a search that had absolutely nothing to do with Alex Yermolinsky. What can I say, it belongs here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzSgJDdwnYg

Yermolinsky's poor team mate is so disgusted he can barely focus on his game.

[Bantari]

I actually think that for both chess and go, tactics is everything, unless you are fairly strong. (I am not.)

I would say - in both games tactics isn't everything UNLESS you are really strong.
Strategy is just a crutch to compensate for our inability to read deep enough.

For what is strategy? It is, in a nutshell, planning based on some general principles. These same principles can be used to evaluate positions you imagine at the deep end of your reading skill limitations. But, as any 'general' principles they only apply in some positions, even if its in most positions. And they only apply to some approximation, even if it is a good approximation in most positions. This is good enough for most of us, but when you're at the top, its insufficient. I think this is at the core of Jasiek's complaint that top Go pros cannot explain positions in terms of 'general principles' - they simply do not think like that.

Here is the idea:
Weak players think for example:
'Main diagonal is good to have, so lets take it' in chess or 'he is strong there so I should not play too close' in Go.

Strong players think for example:
'Main diagonal is good, so maybe take it, now lets calculate all the possible tactics to see if it is good in THIS position or if there is something better' in chess or 'he is strong there so lets not spend too much time calculating tactics resulting from playing close, but lets do some reading anyways since in THIS position it might be different' in Go.

In my experience, beginners use only tactics (since they don't know strategy), then as they grow stronger strategy takes more and more the center stage, then as they grow stronger still strategy starts receding into the background again. Both in chess and in Go.

[sixko]

In my experience, beginners use only tactics (since they don't know strategy), then as they grow stronger strategy takes more and more the center stage, then as they grow stronger still strategy starts receding into the background again. Both in chess and in Go.

Nice post Bantari. Don't think I've ever seen this idea so clearly stated or evident. And surely not for both games in the same post. Perhaps now I can feel a little less anxiety about strong dan players who go around KGS saying shape is meaningless

[entropi]

Hmm but saying "shape is not everything" is very very very different than saying "shape is nothing".
"Shape is meaningless" is very much misleading I think.

It is hard to estimate the percentage but I would guess that for at least half of the opening/midgame moves (yose can be exception) even the strongest players rely more on shape and strategic concepts than precise reading. I say that based on pro game commentaries I read so far.

[nagano]

Perhaps he can explain how the game he thinks so highly of is a good game compared to Go when its rules are totally irrational and it is so obviously flawed that many people could improve upon it within five minutes with little effort. Not that I have anything against chess, by the way.