Here's How Fritz and Other Morons DON'T Think!

Chess Engines Lag Far Behind Humans in Strategic/Positional Understanding>

Before you is the round One game of the famous 1953 Zurich tournament. Black (Keres) played out the opening very well and his two promising central pawns looked very aggressive. Yet, Keres didn't see some little tactics to improve the position, while White (Petrosian) did see some, which helped him neutralize the game which eventually ended in a draw.

Black just retreated his queen 18...Qe6.

Actually, White just gained some positional pluses using our beloved little tactics (see the previous Nov 17 Puzzle)

For the market price of 1P(awn), White traded the black g4-bishop for his knight, activated his queen and gained the c-file control (by the way, Fritz is still totally clueless about what’s going on here: it suggests now 19.Rc2, 19.a3 or 19.Qh5 claiming Black is clearly better with ∓1.03 value; the game continuation will show you how that’s wrong — don’t believe everything what the cheap-chip morons are telling you!).

In fact, this is another great example of how the high-tech morons (that's how I call chess engines) well lag behind humans in strategic understanding of the position; they are tactical monsters, but when it comes to strategy and grasping the positional core in apparently quiet positions, they are still markedly inferior to how humans think and approach problem solving – it is not all about calculation and logic. It's about the intangibles, baby! strategic insight, intuitive thinking, imagination, creative approach, all of which is still out of grasp for the cheap chips, and it will remain so for good…

What should White do in the above Diagram now?

Just to remind you again, our goal here is to increase and sharpen your positional or strategic understanding from the games of the Greats. To make this a pleasurable experience for you, we asked them to use some tactics, some good tactics! Anyway, Masters blend together the tactical and positional all the time. It is not like in chess books, let's practice some tactics from this book, then some positional stuff from that one. No, strategy and tactics always go hand in hand, you don't find them in separate boxes.

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The solution to our previous tactically-positional puzzles, you can find on iPlayoo! chess blog, crafted in Atlanta, Georgia.