- Strategy -
The distinction between tactics and strategy will be important to us. Whereas strategy is abstract and based on long term goals, tactics are concrete and based on finding the best move right now. Tactics are conditional and opportunistic, all about threat and defense. As Sun Tzu wrote centuries ago, "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
If you play without long-term goals your decisions will become purely reactive and you will be playing your opponent's game, not yours. As you jump from one new thing to the next, you will be pulled off course, caught up in what's right in front of you instead of what you need to achieve.
"Why?" Turns tacticians into Strategists
"Why?" is the question that separates visionaries from functionaries, great Strategists from the tacticians. You must ask this question constantly if you understand and develop and follow your strategy.
Every move has a consequence; every move either fits into your strategy or it doesn't. If you aren't questioning your moves constantly, you will lose to the player who is playing with a coherent plan.
A key to developing successful strategies is to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, to know what you do well. Two strong players can have very different strategies in the same position and they might be equally effective.
My aggressive, dynamic style of play fits my strengths and my personality. Even when I am forced on the defensive, I am constantly looking for a chance to turn the tables and counterattack. And when I am on the offensive, I am not content to seek modest gains. Other players specialize in the accumulation of small advantages. They risk little and are content to slowly improve their position. But all these strategies - defensive, dynamic, maneuvering - can be highly effective in the hands of someone who understands them well.
Of course you don't become a world champion without being able to play in different styles when necessary. Sometimes you are forced to fight on unfamiliar terrain. The ability to adopt is critical to your success.
- A frequently Changed Strategy Is the Same as No Strategy -
We all must walk a fine line between flexibility and consistency. A strategist must have faith in his strategy and courage to follow it through and still be open-minded enough to realize when change of course is required.
- Once you have a Strategy, Employing it is a Matter of Desire -
Finally we come to the hardest part of developing and emloying strategic thinking: the confidence to use it and the ability to stick to it consistently. Once you have your strategy down on paper, the real work begins. How do you stay on track, and how do you know when you have slipped away from thinking strategically?
We stay on track with rigorous questioning of our results, both good and bad, and our ongoing decisions. During a game I question my moves, and after the game I question how accurate my evaluations we're in the heat of the battle. Were my decisions good ones? Was my strategy sound? If I won, was it due to luck or skill? When this system fails, or fails to operate quickly enough, disaster can strike.
In chess we see many cases of good strategy failing due to bad tactics and vice versa. Even more dangerous in the long run are the cases of bad strategy succeeding due to good tactics, or due to sheer good fortune. This is why it is so important to question success as vigorously as you question failure.
Pablo Picasso nailed it when he said that "computers are useless. They only give you answers." Questions are what matter. Questions, and discovering the right ones, are the key to staying on course. Are our tactics, our day-to-day decisions, based on our long-term goals? The wave of information threatens to obscure strategy, to drown it in details and numbers, calculation and analysis, reaction and tactics. To have strong tactics we must have strong strategy on one side and accurate calculation (he is taking about ability to calculate chess moves here) on the other. Both requires seeing into the future.
