The Evolution of Chess Vision

I have played chess for many years. I cannot claim to be any good at it. I am at best an amateur, I do not study in the official sense I have no aspirations for titles or ratings. Most of my enjoyment comes from simply playing the game and thinking about how I could play better.

Now as I have grown into the game, there are moments where I realize I am playing differently. Where I feel like I understand something I did not know before, and it changes how you see the board and what you consider important. This is what I want to talk about. Trying to give words to the evolution of my chess vision. I want to break it down into three broad categories:

1. Tactical
2. Strategic
3. Structural

What do I mean when I say chess vision? What I mean is when we look at a position what do we value? What moves do we consider and why? These are based on what we consider most important. Any novice chess player will remember at some point when they are playing going for a piece, only to realize it means you are mated. It should change your evaluation of what is most important in the game, winning a piece means nothing if you lose the game.

Similar to how as we grow into adults, there should come a time of examination of values, where we must look at what you consider important and why: Money, friendships, title, family, or education. Not an exclusive list, but you get the idea, if you want to grow, it helps to examine what you value and why, and most importantly if does not work, change it.

Tactical

When I first started really playing chess I spent most of my time looking for tactical ideas. Unavoidable sequences of moves that win you a piece or will result in winning you the game. It meant when I looked at the board what I valued was tactics totally and completely, winning a game meant finding "the" tactic.

This of course leads to a certain kind of reckless play, it means that if you do not see any tactics to play, suddenly it feels like you have no idea what to do. This makes sense, if you are really only valuing tactical ideas, how do you proceed when there are none? Some players might sac pieces, give up pawns, and destroy positions with the hope of finding tactics to value. Or they shuffle back and forth hoping the opponent will make a mistake for them to pounce on. I remember being in this position, I would play a game solidly, so would my opponent, there would be no tactical opportunities, suddenly I would stall out.

I would say, "I get to a point in the game, and I do not know what to do?"

Strategic

Of course the stronger you get as a player and the stronger the players you play against become, this situation becomes common. How do I proceed in a game when I see no tactical opportunities? Well this is what I consider one of those changes in vision that is hard to articulate. At some point if you keep slamming your head against this tactical wall you might have an hard won insight. Strategy.

What I mean by strategy is you begin to develop plans and ideas. Where you'd like your pieces to be, which piece is more valuable, how do I trade an opponents strong piece. These are not tactics as such, but long term goals. You are working to gain advantage through a long term plan. It is the answer to, "How do I proceed?"

This answer requires an alteration of your vision, what you consider important enough to notice and have it affect your play. This is the budding awareness of light or dark square weaknesses, outposts, proper defence, and controlling squares. These will have direct impact on how you play, you might like a tactic that wins you a pawn, but you might hesitate because in the exchange you lose a vital bishop that secured your dark squares. Is the pawn worth it in my strategy? In effect it changed how you see the board and what you value.

Structural

These days I feel as if there has been yet another change in my vision of chess neither tactically or strategic, what I am beginning to see is a new frontier I call structural play. It has everything to do with pawns, and in this new horizon I see pawns have become one of the most important things on the whole board.

Now this might sound trivial, or perhaps you are a better player than I and noticed it sooner. But I have become hyper aware of pawn exchanges as if they can win or lose the game. A isolated pawn, what squares they control, and how do I build a pawn structure that flows into the strategy which I play. Moves which in the past I might of just glossed over as trivial and unimportant, have suddenly become very important in my vision of a game. A pawn exchange in which no material imbalance is created could still lose you the game. This thought is upending how I view the board and how I see what is important.

A change of vision, it would be trite to say in chess all your pieces are important, in reality this is a deep well of insight. You can attach evaluation numbers to pieces, you can say they are important. The thing I wanted to speak on is WHY they are important.

Every step, every subtle change in your chess vision tells you more about a position than you had before. This is growing, it will alter evaluation, and the more you consider in an evaluation, the more accurate your evaluation of the position becomes.

A striving for the truth of a position requires a clear vision, an examination of what you value and why.