Winning at chess

Is to win at chess primarily a triumph of superior strategy and technique or simply not being the last to make a serious mistake?

At Our level, Mark, it's just the input (= thinking minutes used per a move), which defines the result.     

Don't know about that Lauri. There's a strong element of that but there's also the fact that I can hit upon an imaginative continuation instantly on occasion and then miss the obvious after sustained thought at other times.

If You check all 20-40 legal moves, You'll need no imagination but time & sisu !     

One reason chess is so difficult is you need both to win a game.  Your moves have to reflect a (correct) understanding of some long term strategic goal and at the same time your moves can't be tactical blunders.

Of course to make matters worse, strategic goals can change from move to move, especially when your opponent gets desperate and tries to make a mess.

And then you'd need to consider the continuations, which would imply an exponential increase in moves to be analysed. Of course, most of the legal moves in any given position are obvious rubbish, so that cuts things down quite a lot!

I suspect that most decisive games, even at master level, are closer to my second alternative, albeit the fatal errors are usually more subtle than say those between beginners. The games that get published are usually of the first sort which rather distorts the reality. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by the way: one enjoys and learns more from games that don't hinge on cock-ups, and do contain interesting strategies and tactics.

Says the member, who has his Chess 960-rating below 1,500 after 173 games ??     

Ouch! Well my highest was 1710 which isn't too bad, and it went down when I was unable to access chess.com for a while. Having said that, I do find 960 disorienting and the opening positions annoying as they lack symetry. Not sure though whether any of that makes my comment any more or less valid. ;-) 

It's all the very same chess, Mark. The attitude of a player makes the difference.     

Mmm.... I'm not so sure Lauri. It seems to me that, with 960, you start off with a position which makes little sense and gradually move it to something more conventional. The initial positions and those after the first few moves are positively ugly! That initial position developed, over the centuries, through trial and error and, probably, with a bit of conventional thinking: the King and Queen are in the middle surrounded by their army which somewhat mimics a medievel battle-line. Replacing it with random formations doesn't feel right. If I want to go for something new then I think I prefer something like Glinski's hexagonal chess which I played many years ago.