Chess players say: “Strategy is what to do, tactics is how to do it.” Let us look more closely.
Tactics
Tactics are short forcing operations lasting a few moves: blows, combinations, traps. They usually have a concrete goal — to win material or deliver mate — and a sequence of moves to which the opponent has no good answer.
The main tactical devices:
- the fork — one piece attacks two at once;
- the double attack — the general name for an attack on two targets;
- the pin — a piece cannot move because a more valuable one stands behind it;
- the X-ray — an attack “through” a piece;
- the intermediate move — an unexpected move in the middle of an exchange;
- the sacrifice — giving material to gain more.
Strategy
Strategy is the long-term plan of the game. There is no exact calculation here, but there is an assessment of the position: whose pieces are better, where the weak pawns are, whose king is safer, who controls the centre and the open files.
Strategic questions sound like this:
- On which wing should I play?
- Which pieces should I exchange and which should I keep?
- Where are my opponent's weaknesses and how can I put pressure on them?
- Where should my king go in the endgame?
Which matters more
The great player Richard Teichmann said that chess is 99 percent tactics. That is an exaggeration, but for beginners it is close to the truth: beginners' games are almost always decided by a tactical mistake — an unnoticed fork or a hung piece.
So it is worth starting with tactics. Strategy comes with experience: a good plan is useless if you lose pieces, but tactical blows also tend to arise where your pieces stand better.
How to train
- Tactics — by solving puzzles, a little every day. That way the patterns are remembered like pictures and later “pop up” in your games by themselves.
- Strategy — by studying annotated games of strong players and analysing your own games: why did the plan not work?
Puzzles to test yourself are collected in the “Puzzles” section.