12 CHESS STRATEGY IN ACTION

12   CHESS STRATEGY IN ACTION

such, take a standard King's Indian Defence,

Pirc Defence, or Dragon Sicilian. These all in‑

valve a kingside fan ghetto with ...g6 and

g7. Now White often lines up his queen and

bishop with IVd2 and e3; in that case playing

h6 to exchange bishops on g7 can be good for

any number of general reasons, e.g. because

Black has subsequent weakness on his dark

squares, because White' s centre will be pro‑

tested in the case of an ...exd4 exchange, or be‑

cause White's potential gain of space after d5

will be more effective. But the move h6 may

equally be bad, e.g., if it allows Black to ex‑

change off his only bad piece and block the

game, or if it diverts White' s queen from the

action, or if it helps Black to play ...c5 and at‑

tack a weakened centre. The reality is that such

a decision tends to be very subtle, ultimately

depending upon a great number of other less

obvious factors; e.g., how quickly Black can

play ...b5, whether a well-timed ...exd4 fol‑

lowed by ...c5 or ...Ze8 has tactical advantages,

whether White' s a3 will slow the attack or pro‑

vide a target, what reorganizations of pieces

are available to both sides, and so forth. From

many years of analyzing with top players, I be‑

live that with the aid of calculation they assess

this decision more or less instinctively based

upon experience and judgment, without re‑

sorting to verbal reasoning. Later, the move can

be explained to an audience using simplified

generalities. But going the other way, from

words to move, is extremely unlikely to pro‑

duce the right decision. And it is particularly

hard to act upon raw concepts. For example,

one might trade off time or development to se‑

cure some other positional advantage (an out‑

post, doubled pawn for the opponent). But one

question of many is: how much time/develop‑

mint can I give up before, e.g., a counterattack

becomes a problem? This is solved by some

combination of analysis and judgment, and

very seldom by abstract reasoning.

People commonly interpret what I've said

in terms of rules and exceptions, i.e., modem

players know the rules and have discovered the

exceptions. Or that a player should in fact learn

the rules first and then learn their exceptions.

But that's not what I'm saying at all. The point

is not whether there are X exceptions to every Y

instances in which the rule is true. Naturally

• • •

factors like space, outposts, and 'better' minor

pieces will always correlate, however mildly,

to winning percentage. Rather, I am asking:

a) Does a master think in terms of a given

rule (and exception) at all?

b) Is it even useful to think in those terms

when confronted with a specific position?

Granted, there are cases in which the sim‑

palest way to make my argument (and I have  

occasionally done so) is to point out that there are

so many exceptions to a particular traditional

rule that it becomes meaningless, and so by im‑

placation the modem player must not be using

it. An extreme case is one examined in Chap‑

ters 1 and 2, where I'm not sure whether the

rule 'The player with more space should avoid

exchanges (and vice-versa)' is true even 50% of

the time! But let's say that figure were 60% or

70%: it would still be terribly limiting to be

thinking about a prospective exchange in terms

of such a rule. Even when the rule expresses a

situation that is true in many more cases than

not (e.g., 'a knight on the rim is grim' ), is it con‑

structive to think in those terms? Or is it better

to examine the concrete situation in all of its

subtleties, without prejudice, using calculation

and pattern recognition as tools? Which does

the strong player do? In my observation and

from many conversations and analysis with

them, grandmasters don't think much in terms

of rules and exceptions at all. Indeed, in some

cases where they have done so, some quite

playable positions have escaped deserved con‑

side ration because of they 'looked' bad on gen‑

eral principle. Increasingly, that attitude is being

replaced by a pragmatic analytical approach.

Other models have been floated to deal with

these issues. One such is the idea that rules are

valid, 'other things being equal'. I won't go

into detail here, but the question in practice is

whether anyone can decide by explicit means to

what extent other factors in a typical middle game

are 'equal' . Since the diverse considerations are

interdependent and also time-dependent, and

since they can be so unbelievably complex, the

determination of what weight to give one ab‑

strict rule or another seems to me impossible in

almost all cases. Then there is the idea of as‑

sassing and utilizing explicitly identifiable im‑

balances. But juggling and weighing the many

and often subtle imbalances (and anticipated