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Learning strategy through games- a question

I don't know if this is in the right place, but I couldn't see where else it would fit in. If it's out of place here, my apologies.

Anyway, what I wanted to ask is this-- my motive in playing games is mainly to make my strategic thinking better. (Apart from fun killing of time, of course).

Now, in a game such as chess, I find that several people, including chess champs literally have moves by heart-- to the point that they know that if Move A is made, Move B should follow. Of course, this isn't always possible, but you get the idea.

To a relative newcomer to chess, isn't this sort of counterproductive? Instead of thinking, you already have the moves mapped out? Isn't is better for me to approach the board with a completely open mind rather than have a hundred moves and defenses by heart?

Which do you think would be better for me to learn strategy-- learn the moves, or just jump into the game when you know the rules? I have no wish to become a grandmaster or anything, of course. I just want to sharpen my mind.

Reply 1

Dalimyr

I'm going to move this across to GD after posting because you'll probably get a better and more varied response there than in Gaming.

First off, it should be made clear that everyone learns in different ways, so your question isn't really something that we can answer for you.
However, that said, my personal experience with learning something new (I'm thinking primarily of when I learned poker a few years ago, but the same applies to other things, including chess) is that it's a good idea to read up so that you know the basics of how the game works, and then start getting some table time. You can read books on strategy and technique all you want, but at the end of the day you've got to put it into practice and there's no substitute for first-hand experience. As you get experience of playing, make a note of where you think you're falling short, and try a combination of practice and reading to figure out how to improve on your problem areas.

Your thinking of the good players' strategies being counter-productive is in a fashion, but in long drawn-out strategy games you want to have a general plan of action for the game, but remember to always be prepared for the unexpected. Good players in the likes of snooker and chess are already thinking of how the next few moves are likely to pan out and they can prepare for something a few moves down the line so that their problems are eased...but at the same time, something might happen that they weren't counting on (a snooker player might get a 'heavy contact' which leaves the white ball somewhere that they didn't intend for it to be, a chess player's opponent may make a rather random move), and so they've suddenly got to rethink their plans and either change the plan or make a few changes to things so that the plan can get back on track, and these are things that it is harder for a book to teach you but practice will give you experience of this and what the best course of action would be in certain circumstances.

So, basically, my advice is to mix the two - read up to know the rules, then mix reading up on strategy and putting what you've learned into practice, and as you get better you'll find yourself having to return to the books less and less :smile: