The tactic fallacy.
Today I want to coin a little concept; the tactic fallacy.
It's an idea that comes to my mind every time I see a comment of the kind: "at that elo, all you should study is tactics."
I am sure most of you saw this idea at least once before: Whether a 1200 elo player asks questions about opening, a 1500 about strategy, or an 1800 about the endgame, the go-to answer of the 2400 blitz player is always:
"Just study tactics!"
Three words behind which you can feel the difficulty they had to restrain from adding, "You filthy beginner!"
I am caricaturing, of course, but this default answer always sounded smug, slightly dismissive, and wrong.
And since I don't like to be dismissive, even of dismissive people, I started to think about the reason behind these comments, which led me to conceptualize the tactic fallacy.
The origins
99% of non-master games are won and lost on blunders. At 1200, you give pieces, at 1400 forks, at 1800, you miss obvious tactics, and when you finally reach 2000! Well, you still miss tactics, just fancier ones.
So yes, the diagnostic is correct. Out of any two players below 2000, the one 10% better at tactics will win nine games out of ten. I am sure my math is wrong here, but you get the idea.
The first tactic fallacy
With that being said, concluding that only tactics determine the outcome of a beginner's game is a mistake, as the likelihood of a tactic occurring depends on all the other aspects of the game.
"Openings are useless for beginners. You should study tactics!"
Well... if you don't know your openings, you may fall into tactical traps. And even if you don't, you will spend valuable seconds thinking of moves that should be instantaneous, thus losing time to calculate accurately.
"Endgames are too complex for 1000 elo players, study tactics!"
Well... If you don't understand endgame principles, you may leave your king out of the game, thus robbing you of the chance to get tactical opportunities.
"Put down this strategy book, boy, and go work on your tactics!"
The grand-mother of all tactics is strategy. Yes, you may be able to calculate accurately a seven-move combination that will get you a queen. However, if you didn't put that knight on this outpost, maneuver your bishop on the long diagonal, or took advantage of the semi-open file, you would be spending your calculating genius on finding a way out of a mate threat right now!
This first fallacy of tactics is the boxing equivalent of watching some mid-level fighter get knocked out and conclude that only punch to the head matters at that level, ignoring the cardio, the footwork, and the technique that gave the fighter a chance at a clean strike.
The second tactic fallacy
When people tell you that only tactics matter, they are not only making a bland statement that non-master games are usually lost by blunders. They are also making an implicit suggestion on how you should spend your chess time, and that is: not playing rapid, even less blitz, not studying theory, or learning about strategy, no! If these people were in charge of your life, they might let you play a few classical OTB games, but until you are 2000, they would make you do one thing and one thing only, tactics.
This second part of the fallacy rests on the false assumption that the only way to improve at spotting and solving tactics is... well, to solve tactics.
While this will definitively help you a lot, it is not the only thing you can do, and definitively not the only thing you should do.
What do you think you do when you learn to avoid that line of the Sicilian because of this particular threat? Or when you learn how to counter bad gambits like the Englund?
What do you do when you try to solve the exercise on a chess.com endgame course?
What goes through your mind when you try to understand why this knight manoeuver is positionally brilliant or this pawn structure is weak?
You calculate. You project yourself on the board, you solve... tactics.
Every time you play a game with your full concentration, you improve your tactic level. Every time you analyze one, you improve your tactic level. Every time you stare at a chessboard for more than five minutes or try to remember an opening variation in the shower... you improve your tactic level.
A note of caution
I wrote this small post to highlight two truths that are independent of your elo:
- Just because you miss tactics frequently, it does not mean that the rest of chess does not matter for you. Tactics opportunities can be estimated as a function of all other aspects of chess.
- The fact that you want to improve your tactic level doesn't imply you should only do tactics.
But please, do not take away from this piece that you should never solve puzzles. If you want to improve, you definitively should.
But I hope that the next time you think you are wasting your time playing chess instead of "working on your tactics," or the next time someone dismisses your effort to learn an opening line because "you will lose or win on a tactic," you will think about the tactical fallacy, and smile!
