What Is the Difference Between Chess Strategy and Tactics
If you are new to chess, you may have heard different terms thrown around regarding what you should study. Terms like “tactics” and “strategy” sound complicated, or may seem to be similar in your mind, but when getting into the weeds of chess learning, it can be helpful to understand the difference between chess strategy and chess tactics, so that you can best allocate your study time and improve in the game of chess. Let's start with a story. You sit down to play a game of chess against your friend, and you reach the end of the game, at which point this position arises. What would you play?
This is a chess tactic. In this case, it is one move that attacks two pieces and wins you material. This particular tactic is called a fork. You didn’t find this move because you had some grand strategy to look for forks; you just kept your eyes open and spotted the tactical pattern.
Tactics Detector
Chess tactics are like being someone with a metal detector; you are on the lookout for something valuable, and hopefully, you will find the rare item or valuable metal as you look around. Playing chess with a good strategy is all about setting yourself up for success. These are the long-term goals that enable effective tactics. If chess tactics are finding valuables with a metal detector, then chess strategy is knowing that you should go to the busy beach to search in the first place!
In my favorite chess book for beginners, Learn to Play Chess Like a Boss, Grandmaster Patrick Wolff describes a chess tactic as “a sequence of moves, generally a few moves long, played with a specific goal in mind. Often the goal is either to give checkmate or to win material.” The game of chess is a game of pattern recognition, and if you can start recognizing the patterns involved in chess tactics, you will significantly improve your game.
Chess Strategy
My favorite book on chess strategy is Winning Chess Strategy by Yasser Seirawan. Yasser describes chess strategy as follows: “The purposeful pursuit of a simple goal: to gain an advantage of some sort over your opponent.” This means that a strategy is moving toward a goal with longer-term thinking, whereas a tactic is a single moment, where you can play a move that achieves that goal.
How to Learn Tactics
Because chess tactics are all about pattern recognition, you can do two things to learn tactics.
- Learn the pattern. In order to practice a chess tactic, you first need to learn and understand that tactic. That means having a general understanding of what is happening during a tactic, and why it works. Most tactics utilize the rules of chess to your advantage, so if you don't understand why something is happening, it will be more challenging to recognize the pattern later.
- Once you have learned the pattern, it is all about repetition. Drilling the tactics over and over will help you see those same patterns in a game. Just like learning any other skill, by practicing these tactics repeatedly, you will improve. You can do this through online resources, such as Lichess.org, for free, or you can use a puzzle book. If you are brand new to chess, I recommend this book for learning the basic chess tactic patterns for kids, or Patrick Woolf’s book I mentioned before for adults.
Chess puzzles can be confusing, but take your time, try to understand the underlying pattern, and it will vastly improve your game.
How Chess Players Learn Strategy
Strategy in chess is more difficult to define. No pun intended. A tactic can be one move, and you can learn the pattern, but a strategy requires a more thorough understanding. So, if learning tactics is all about repetition and doing multiple chess puzzles in order to learn the patterns, how do you learn strategies? There are a few ways to learn chess strategies:
- Read chess books! There are good strategies even within beginner-level chess books
- Playing and reviewing your games. A coach is an excellent resource for tackling chess strategy.
- Play a game and talk through your ideas with a stronger player. A higher-rated player can interpret the strategies that you are thinking of implementing and help you to understand what it is you are missing.
- Watch chess videos about general tips and strategies, not just openings or traps. A lo of my students will watch chess content, but all they learn is some new gambit. Instead, watch good players talking through their moves, and you can learn top-tier strategies.
Example of a Chess Strategy
One of the first chess strategies that I teach is in the opening. Good opening principles are good chess strategy. First, we start by controlling the middle of the board in the opening. This usually means putting a pawn on either e4 or d4. Controlling the middle is a good strategy because we control more squares when our pieces are in the center of the board than when they are on the side. Next, we develop our pieces. Having good active pieces is a good strategy because if we want to find any kind of tactics, our pieces need to be on good squares and off their starting spots. Lastly, we want to castle our king. This keeps our king safe and stops our opponent from attacking us in the open middle of the board.
Tactical Ideas as Strategy
Tactics may be one or two move ideas, but one good strategy in chess can be to situate your pieces in such a way that a tactic could appear. If you have a position where there is an open file, a good strategy would be to bring your rook to the open file; not only do rooks like open files, but you are setting yourself up for success. If your opponent blunders, you will be ready to capitalize!
Pawn Structure as Strategy
A well-structured pawn position can be a key chess strategy. One thing I always warn my students against is weakening the pawn structure in front of their king. What can happen if those pawns move is that your king can be attacked. This can be something you use in your favor, however. If you are able to capture a piece, and they have to capture back with a pawn, therefore ruining their king's safety, that can be a good way to attack your opponent. You will be ready to find a good tactic because you have set yourself up with a solid strategy.
Remember, playing chess is like looking for treasure with a metal detector. You only find gold if you are constantly on the lookout, but you also have to put yourself in the right place to be successful. You can use good strategy by putting your pieces on good squares and being ready to find tactics.