How strategic thinking made chess more interesting for me

After writing the first post, I drew conclusions. Hopefully this post will be a little prettier and more interesting.

Strategic thinking is so interesting and fun!

When I played at the 1200-1400 rating, I thought very little.
Frankly speaking, now I understand that I did not think at all.

I made move after move. I tried not to make mistakes. I tried to simply react to the actions of my opponent.

Now I began to understand that everything is not so simple.
I want to show you chess, as about a strategic game.

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My understanding of Strategy

Strategy is like your philosophy.
This is something global, something that does not have a specific description. This is the approach. This is a look. This is an opinion.

Strategic decision:

• Come on, let's conduct a counterattack!
• We'd better sit on the defensive today
• If we attack many times in a row, the enemy will be confused

If we are talking about chess:

• If the opponent does not have any valid moves left? Where can he go? Nowhere. That is, he is trapped.
• If I distract him on the left, he will be weakened on the right.
• I don't want to count anything, I'll make a safe move.

I hope you understand what I mean.

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The concept of Position Evaluation and Advantage

In real life, unfortunately, we do not have all the information about what is happening.
Due to the fact that we do not have all the information, we can make the wrong strategic decisions.
But in chess, all the information is in front of us.

Understanding what is currently happening in the game means Position Evaluation.
In simple terms, Advantage means: who is more likely to win now.

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We make cool strategic decisions, relying on Position Evaluation and Advantage

Example:

• If I was attacked, I can: A - defend myself. B - counterattack.
• If I defend, I can: A - increase the number of defensive pieces. B - reduce the number of attacking pieces.
• If I escalate the situation: A - increase the number of attacks in the same place. B - switch the attack to one more side.

But these formulas always include the variable: Who has the advantage now?

Example:

• Now I have +5 in material. This means I have an advantage. It is worth attacking harder to finish with a victory faster.
• Oh no! My pieces are not yet developed. And the enemy is already attacking. Perhaps I should defend at the moment.

After reading this, your life has become even richer and more interesting.

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P.S. Why do I think being a strong strategist is much more interesting than being a super tactician?
To be honest, many people cannot play chess due to the fact that there are a lot of counting options.
But I'm sure absolutely everyone loves to represent themselves in the role of a Warlord! General! Emperor!

Therefore, I advise you to enjoy your own strategy game. Make some plans. Create ideas. Become an interesting opponent with your own concepts.
To my taste, chess is a psychological game. Such rules as work here: scare or deceive, overexert, crush, etc.

I hope you enjoyed reading this.
And now you will start to get even more fun from chess.