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Date: 25 Aug 2008 07:58:19
From: SBD
Subject: Chess 82% tactics?
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According to Negyesy and Hegyi (Combinations in Chess, Corvina, 1970),
H. Mueller in "Lerne Kombinieren" (a book that is on my to-buy list)
states that of 8,000 games played at the most significant tournaments
of the first half of the twentieth century 6,562 (82%) were decided by
tactics.
In contrast with the Teichmann attribution of chess being 99% tactics
(which seems to be roundly derided, at least in the sources I have
seen), here we have a real number supposedly found by relatively
scientific means.
Given the databases we have today, has anyone tried to make a
comparison? And certainly in today's games, we can eliminate all sorts
of things - finding results for patzers, average masters, and super
GMs. My suspicion is that one could affirm Teichmann at the lower
levels, and I would think that fewer games should be decided by purely
tactical means at higher levels, possibly even less than 82%.
Anyone?
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Date: 25 Aug 2008 18:59:47
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Chess 82% tactics?
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SBD wrote:
> According to Negyesy and Hegyi (Combinations in Chess, Corvina, 1970),
> H. Mueller in "Lerne Kombinieren" (a book that is on my to-buy list)
> states that of 8,000 games played at the most significant tournaments
> of the first half of the twentieth century 6,562 (82%) were decided by
> tactics.
The problem with this kind of thing is that
unless computers are used to derive the
results, human "judgment" clouds the issue.
First, before doing anything else, you
have to carefully establish unambiguous
definitions which you promise will not be
"adjusted", on pain of death by slow
torture.
Second, using your *fixed* definitions of
what is a game won by tactics, and what
constitutes a game won by other means,
you feed in various sets of data, noting the
results, as is, with no attempt to fit them to
any preconceptions, emotional desires, or
other such human flaws (aka: attributes).
-----------------------------------------------------------
Let me just say that I have recently
watched some DVDs in which the term
"science" was carefully defined at the
start, but then every time it seemed
convenient, the lecturer (who is typical
of this breed of academics) tossed out
his own definition, and allowed what he
would normally call "pseudo-science"
to pass itself off as science. In sum,
human bias not only creeps in, it has a
unique ability to take over the controls.
-- help bot
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Date: 25 Aug 2008 09:37:36
From:
Subject: Re: Chess 82% tactics?
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On Aug 25, 12:04=A0pm, SBD <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Aug 25, 10:38 am, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > =A0 Steve, I never took Teichmann's dictum to mean that a certain
> > percentage of games were decided by primarilly tactical means.
> > Ultimately, any chess game with a decisive result is decided by
> > tactics.
>
> That is a good point and I need to step through the logic there as I
> had noted the same point - indeed 100% of all decisive games have a
> tactical component that decides (else why resign?), but what about
> draws?
>
> Perhaps you are saying any quantification attempt would be a fool's
> burden? And what do you take Teichmann's dictum to mean?
Basically, I just took it to mean that if you don't know chess
tactics, you don't know anything about chess. It's possible to know
nothing about strategy yet still win a game with tactics, but to know
nothing about tactics and win? Virtually inconceivable. The "99%" may
be hyperbole, but the ultimate primacy of tactics is beyond question.
It also reminds me of Edison's dictum that "Genius is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration," or words to that effect, meaning knowledge and
ideas are useless without the effort to put them to use.
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Date: 25 Aug 2008 09:04:23
From: SBD
Subject: Re: Chess 82% tactics?
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On Aug 25, 10:38 am, [email protected] wrote:
> Steve, I never took Teichmann's dictum to mean that a certain
> percentage of games were decided by primarilly tactical means.
> Ultimately, any chess game with a decisive result is decided by
> tactics.
That is a good point and I need to step through the logic there as I
had noted the same point - indeed 100% of all decisive games have a
tactical component that decides (else why resign?), but what about
draws?
Perhaps you are saying any quantification attempt would be a fool's
burden? And what do you take Teichmann's dictum to mean?
Thanks....
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Date: 25 Aug 2008 08:38:39
From:
Subject: Re: Chess 82% tactics?
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On Aug 25, 10:58=A0am, SBD <[email protected] > wrote:
> According to Negyesy and Hegyi (Combinations in Chess, Corvina, 1970),
> H. Mueller in "Lerne Kombinieren" (a book that is on my to-buy list)
> states that of 8,000 games played at the most significant tournaments
> of the first half of the twentieth century 6,562 (82%) were decided by
> tactics.
>
> In contrast with the Teichmann attribution of chess being 99% tactics
> (which seems to be roundly derided, at least in the sources I have
> seen), here we have a real number supposedly found by relatively
> scientific means.
>
> Given the databases we have today, has anyone tried to make a
> comparison? And certainly in today's games, we can eliminate all sorts
> of things - finding results for patzers, average masters, and super
> GMs. My suspicion is that one could affirm Teichmann at the lower
> levels, and I would think that fewer games should be decided by purely
> tactical means at higher levels, possibly even less than 82%.
>
> Anyone?
Steve, I never took Teichmann's dictum to mean that a certain
percentage of games were decided by primarilly tactical means.
Ultimately, any chess game with a decisive result is decided by
tactics.
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