Controversial opinion - Chess strategy is extremely overrated

Strategy is VERY important mate. 

Especially in classical. 

#22
"you rely too much on some other people's thoughts" ++ I rely on my own thoughts, but as I have no title I try to quote grandmasters whenever possible for credibility.

"one could just drill tactics" ++ That is what the Polgar sisters did.

"buy some tactics books, not even play chess" ++ Play and analysis are essential. In tactics puzzles you know there is a tactic and you know for which side. In a game you know neither.

"I am pretty sure that your 2100 rapid rating didn't come just from practicing tactics"
++ I win / lose 99% from tactics. All strategy, endgames, openings pale in comparison.

"for engines to employ tactics they have to have a better position in the first place"
++ Engines destroy grandmasters from any opening imposed on them i.e. also from a bad position. They seize any opportunity. They never crack under pressure.

#24
"Humans think slower than computers but not necessarily worse"
Engines work on tactics only. Grandmasters with all their strategy are much worse than engines.

Do you really think that engines don't use strategy? Sure, they do not have a brain of their own so to speak, but they play many strategical ideas GMs play and more. That is why they are better, they are better at pretty much every aspect of chess(perhaps not some specific positions but those are exceptions) not only at their tactical play.

Of course they can turn around worse positions. They make accurate moves all around, GMs can't follow that. But this means that they play good moves even when there are no tactics in sight.

The fact that you win/lose due to tactics doesn't mean that you/your opponent haven't already been worse and cracked under the pressure. If you didn't have any plan in mind, you would blunder on move 15 for instance instead of move 30. And that could mean the difference between loss and a win, because your opponent might be uncomfortable from move number 20 and blunder before you could do so yourself.


So now playing games is essential and analysis as well? But if chess is 99% tactics, one would assume you can spend 99 out of 100 hours just drilling tactics, but I guess not, it seems that percentage is somewhat off.

As for Polgar sisters I will quote this:

One evening, Susan was studying an endgame with their trainer, a strong International Master. Unable to find the solution, they woke Judit, who was asleep in bed and carried her into the training room. Still half asleep, Judit showed them how to solve the problem, after which they put her back to bed.

But sure, all they did was drilling tactics.

I play using strategy and positional concepts, most of the time.

I only begin "calculating" when there's the need to consider a forced sequence of moves.

The rest of the time I try to put my bishops on strong diagonals, try to control important squares, try to improve my structure while trying to worsen my opponent's.

You know ... playing chess like a human.

Trying to calculate all the time, like an engine, isn't practical at all. Nor is it really required, to play decent chess.

#27

"they play many strategical ideas GMs play and more"
No, they just calculate. The elder engines use a human programmed evaluation function, but the newer AlphaZero, LC0, Stockfish NNUE learn themselves from playing games without other input than the rules of the game. These engines reinvented human discoveries, but also new ideas. Nowadays grandmasters learn from engines.

"Susan was studying an endgame" ++ Endgames are also full of tactics.

Here is the Polgar book: 5334 problems, combinations, and games, i.e. tactics!
https://www.amazon.com/Chess-5334-Problems-Combinations-Games/dp/1579125549 

"playing games is essential and analysis as well?"
++ Of course: you learn from your tactical mistakes

"one would assume you can spend 99 out of 100 hours just drilling tactics"
++ Tactics puzzles are not chess: you know there is a tactic and you know for which side. Tactical awareness comes from play & analysis.

So what if they only calculate, that is semantics ... Even if they make moves differently it doesn't mean that the human idea behind many of those moves aren't clear. I played against some engine users and in some situations the top engine move for him would be to take space or play some calm improving move. They for instance can attack a certain weakness in my position or whatever.

This is in human terms creating plans, however engine manage to come up with that move is irrelevant.

Your talk about tactics like some holy grail is like me saying something like: "Tactics doesn't matter, strategy doesn't matter, nothing really matters, all you need is to play accurate moves and you will beat everybody." 

Which is true in some sense, but it will not help me to get better.

The thing is that strategy makes it more  comfortable for you to produce tactical opportunities.  

You can be really good at tactics, but if your pieces are not coordinated, randomly positioned in all the corners of the board and your king is unsafe, you will have  an uncomfortable time using up all your mental energy to utilise all your petty resources to its max. Something which I often do because I am a noob and love to torture myself.

If you argue on the premise that the majority of players are not IMs, GMs, etc, and that strategy is less useful than tactics for the majority of players, you would be correct. But I don't agree that strategy is overrated, since pretty much all the coaches I've seen say, "tactics, tactics, tactics", "practice your tactics", "your homework over the weekend is to do 20 puzzles", etc... 

Never once heard a coach say that you should go read pawn power by kmoch or anything of the like.

if you dont like chess stop playing it 

It might help if each person defined what "strategy" means to him/her/it. 
It seems to me that people are viewing strategy as the opposite, or even as the companion, to tactics, whereas I see tactics as as integral part of strategy.  You have a plan and you execute that plan using whatever positional or tactical ideas you can ascertain, while calculating whatever lines seem necessary.  If you fail in finding tactics, or you fail in calculating correctly or in choosing the right candidates to calculate, or if your positional ideas had a flaw, your plan (strategy) can easily fail if your opponent detects and is able to take advantage of your missteps. That doesn't mean the strategy was bad, just that it's execution was less than optimal.  

Playing without a plan seems to me to be as bad or worse as executing a plan poorly.  It also seems to me in a serious game one should have an overall but flexible strategic plan, then minor plans or plans within plans, that seek an advantage, whether that advantage is material or simply a tempo, spatial, better (and more efficient) development, a more secure king, things that allow you too pursue your main objective(s).  

and bullet

except the weekends

I agree that tactics are important, because you don't want to hang pawns or pieces through simple combinations ... or fail to notice when your opponent does the same.

But coaches generally teach positional concepts too, not just tactics.

It's common for a coach to explain why placing a rook on an semi-open file is a good idea, for example, and then to show example games where such a move proved useful, reinforcing the concept in the student.

I'd call that more in the realm of teaching the fundamentals of chess "strategy", rather than tactics.

But yes, ideally, a player should use both.

(Also, a coach who says, "Do 20 puzzles over the weekend" isn't much of a coach, IMO. They should be giving select games to review, chosen specifically for the student, based on their current weaknesses and strengths ... along with a sheet of questions for the student to answer, to reinforce certain strategic concepts ... "On move 22, if white's bishop had been on f4 instead of b2, what would have been a good plan for black, regarding his queenside pawns?", etc...)

its all true for fast games...

but if you play 3 hours + 30 s otb its another story because there you can calmly calculate almost every tactic or combination so the plan, strategy etc is much more important there...

simply more time = more strategy 

FALSE

uhm.. ok.. could i know why it's false please?

simple the trick is to make your opponent think their winning and out of nowhere suddenly destroy them 

oh sure.. of course.. sorry~ silly fox has to still learn a lot before it will be able do such a difficult and advanced tricks~🦊

In the English Opening, I think the strategy is to run over the opponent's camp with pawns, open the queenside corner, and penetrate his camp.

In the King's Indian, White attacks the queenside, and Black attacks the kingside - I'd call that a strategy. Strategy makes your blunders matter less. Looking at the end and then marching towards it, makes your moves connected, therefore your game is stronger.

I agree.