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"TvT is a lot like chess"
No, it actually isn't. In fact, it's probably the least chess-like matchup in the game. It isn't people's ignorance about TvT that comes to this conclusion but people's ignorance about chess and what to compare it with. I've seen this analogy come by infinite times and no one with a very good understanding of chess and related games could claim such a thing so I want to adress it. First to dispell a simple myth about chess:
Chess is not a positional game at all.
At least, not relatively to other similar games. Now, what do I mean with 'positional'? Well, chess itself has that term. You essentially focus on the general position of your chess pieces, you try to control locations, construct your opponents movements, put pressure on important parts of the chess board to not allow your opponent to use them for his or her own ends. Essentially you're taking calculated risks. You don't yet know how it will serve you in the future because you can't think 25 moves ahead. But you have a good guess that that rank and file will most likely be important in the future, because it tends to be. And positional play in chess is a very important skill to master. But not nearly as important as tactical play. Which is the backbone of chess.
Tactical play is thinking short term, you know exactly what is going to happen. You don't make educated guesses, you calculate exactly the responses your opponent may have to it, forgetting a possible response is a blunder. If you don't master your tactics in chess one thing will quickly lead to another and you will be at a material disadvantage before you know it. Which is also why computers are exceptionally good at chess for how complicated the game is. Computers can't take educated guesses and apply fuzzy logic, but they excell at tactical play like nothing else, they will evaluate every possible outcome flawlessly for the next 8 moves. It's very hard to program a computer to realize that the 'other fourth' in cloud kingdom is a better fourth to take in TvZ because it allows you to use it as a staging point to attack Zergs fourth. It's very easy to program a computer to realize that a certain moves gives him mate in 3 and there's nothing the opponent can do about it.
Now, there's another board game out there called Go, perhaps you heard of it.
The rules are actually markedly simple to explain in a nutshell:
- You're usually playing on a 19x19 grid, but it can be smaller or larger as you agree to with your opponent
- both players, black and white, take turns placing a stone of their colour on the grid
- a group of directly (not diagonally) connected stones of your colour is part of your territory
- when such a group of connected stones ends up completely surrounded by enemy stones (again not diagonally) it is removed (captured) from the board, illustrated below:
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Go_capturing.png)
- at the end of the game, the player with the most territory, which includes anything you have surrounded wins.
And computers are notably awful at it compared to chess. There is almost zero tactical play in go compared to positional play. You cosntantly take educated guesses on where you place your stones. You don't consider 'If I do this then my opponent can do that or that or that or that then I can do such and that or that and that or that or this etc', you can't keep track of that unlike with chess. You go by feeling largely. The purpose of Go is to consume more and more territory, surround your opponent, slowly and steadily creep up to him or her, surround his or her terroritory and starve it out. Sounds a lot like TvT doesn't it?
Let's consider a couple of other differences between chess and go:
- in chess, advantages escalate, if two players are of similar skill and A has an advantage, A will be able to run with it easily and get a bigger and bigger lead. At decently high level chess, most people surrender after their first major mistake if they even make one. In chess, one mistake and you lose, there is no coming back almost from an actual clear mistake.
- in go, advantages neutralize between two players of similar skill if the game goes on and on, advantages can barely be used to stretch out further advantages compared to chess. What constitutes a 'mistake' is less clear and the game certainly isn't over after one.
- chess is very quick burning. It gets hot from the start, white opens, blacks next move is already a direct response, white is again forced to respond to that. It's a reactionary game from the get go.
- go contrasting is more slow burning to get going, the first initial moves are barely responses to each other and it takes time for the game to get going and for people's opening plans to unravel.
- in chess, it is extremely rare for a player with a material disadvantage, less and less valuable pieces on the board to still be considered 'ahead', sure it happens, but it's quite rare and if it's true it's 2 pawns at best. That or the player is in the process of employing a winning tactic where he or she sacriced some material because he or she knows 100% certain it can be forced back.
- in go, it is very normal for a player with a material advantage to be considered in a very bad position. It's not about how many stones you have, it's about where you have them.
- chess is a destructive game, you remove pieces from the board mostly, as the game goes on it becomes less and less interactive and aggressive, less and less exchanges of pieces
- go is a constructive game, you add pieces to the board mostly, as the game goes on interaction happens more and more and more and more and more capturing of pieces occurs.
- in chess there is almost no such thing as a 'defenders advantage', the entire concept of attacking and defending is extremely blurred, often attacks are the best defence in chess, someone threatens to attack you? You don't defend, you threaten an even more powerful attack that forces attention back to that.
- go has a very strong concept of defenders advantage, you are the strongest where you have the most territitory positioned well.
It should be apparent, TvT is not like chess, it is in fact the least chess like matchup in the game, its polar oposite, ZvZ, is the most like chess. Chess is a very aggressive, fast paced slugfestish board game where the player who makes the first real mistake likely dies.
 
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I'm not sure I really agree with this. Chess is a very positional game especially at higher levels and you mention its importance yourself. You may be right that Go is a better analogy I don't really know enough about it. Nevertheless the comparison between TvT and chess still makes sense. For example the similarity between a strongly placed knight and line of tanks well positioned tanks. In many top level grandmaster games one player will usually push a small positional advantage and turn it into a bigger one.
You are right that computers are weak at positional play. When you think about it's incredible that a human player can still compete with a computer which can see millions of positions a second and this is precisely because they are weak at positional play. In my opinion it's a fair comparison.
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On March 11 2013 06:16 yarders wrote:
I'm not sure I really agree with this. Chess is a very positional game especially at higher levels and you mention its importance yourself. You may be right that Go is a better analogy I don't really know enough about it. Nevertheless the comparison between TvT and chess still makes sense. For example the similarity between a strongly placed knight and line of tanks well positioned tanks. In many top level grandmaster games one player will usually push a small positional advantage and turn it into a bigger one.
You are right that computers are weak at positional play. When you think about it's incredible that a human player can still compete with a computer which can see millions of positions a second and this is precisely because they are weak at positional play. In my opinion it's a fair comparison. The comparison is of course relative, but positional play has a minute importance in chess compared to Go or other such games like Chinese chess or draughts. Picking out chess as an example from all those games as an analogy to TvT is particularly weird because the very defining charactaristics of chess when people talk about such games are the things that TvT has the least as a matchup in sc2 and ZvZ, its polar opposite has the most.
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I tend to agree, I've never really liked to compare Chess and Starcraft myself. There's lots of differences and plenty of points to argue about how they are dissimilar. In my mind there 2 main reasons why people like to make the comparison:
1) Chess is one of the best known competitive games that gets a fair bit of respect for those that play it well
2) Chess is a thinking person's game where strategy and thinking your moves through are what lead to you being a better player
#2 is why people see similarities in the games, but #1 helps to give people who know nothing about SC or e-sports an idea of what they are about. This is why you see the comparison made, not because the games (or specific matches therein) are actually very similar.
Having said that, there is plenty of similarity and I think your missing some of it here. You do a fair bit of contrasting Chess and Go but don't do much to link it all back to SC, and then you just mention ZvZ without tying it to anything. In fact your arguments seem to point out how chess is more similar to SC than go is.
- in chess, advantages escalate, if two players are of similar skill and A has an advantage, A will be able to run with it easily and get a bigger and bigger lead. At decently high level chess, most people surrender after their first major mistake if they even make one. In chess, one mistake and you lose, there is no coming back almost from an actual clear mistake.
- in go, advantages neutralize between two players of similar skill if the game goes on and on, advantages can barely be used to stretch out further advantages compared to chess. What constitutes a 'mistake' is less clear and the game certainly isn't over after one.
Starcraft, like chess, tends to have escalating advantages. If the player who wins the first engagement, or eeks out an advantage, does not make any big mistakes they will almost certainly take the game. This is why when a one basing player who launches a big attack leaves if that attack is held off, they know they are too far behind to take a base and play on.
- chess is very quick burning. It gets hot from the start, white opens, blacks next move is already a direct response, white is again forced to respond to that. It's a reactionary game from the get go.
- go contrasting is more slow burning to get going, the first initial moves are barely responses to each other and it takes time for the game to get going and for people's opening plans to unravel.
I suppose here Go feels more similar to SC as the first few minuets of the game tends to be pretty mapped out and the players are just setting up their later strategies, of course there can be a lot of action early on and important things start happening after a couple of minuets.
- in chess, it is extremely rare for a player with a material disadvantage, less and less valuable pieces on the board to still be considered 'ahead', sure it happens, but it's quite rare and if it's true it's 2 pawns at best. That or the player is in the process of employing a winning tactic where he or she sacriced some material because he or she knows 100% certain it can be forced back.
- in go, it is very normal for a player with a material advantage to be considered in a very bad position. It's not about how many stones you have, it's about where you have them.
Pretty much the same as your first point just flipped on it's head, again SC is very much like chess in this regard.
- chess is a destructive game, you remove pieces from the board mostly, as the game goes on it becomes less and less interactive and aggressive, less and less exchanges of pieces
- go is a constructive game, you add pieces to the board mostly, as the game goes on interaction happens more and more and more and more and more capturing of pieces occurs.
This is where SC shows that it's its own animal. The game starts slow as the bases and armies get built up, but ultimately the goal is to destroy the enemies army and eventually bases. So you could argue either way.
- in chess there is almost no such thing as a 'defenders advantage', the entire concept of attacking and defending is extremely blurred, often attacks are the best defence in chess, someone threatens to attack you? You don't defend, you threaten an even more powerful attack that forces attention back to that.
- go has a very strong concept of defenders advantage, you are the strongest where you have the most territitory positioned well.
While this one is possibly arguable, I feel chess is again the better analogy. While it's true that there is a defender's advantage in SC it's not always well defined. Basically past the faster rally point (which is negated by things like Nydus worms and Warpgate) and high ground advantage (negated by vision) there is not a clear defender's advantage. Also much like in chess you can abuse threats of attack to pull your opponent out of position.
TvT then gets special treatment being compared to chess due to the nature of Tank vs Tank battles (which was a much more frequent in Brood War to SC2 mind you, and I believe this analogy originates from BW). You can look at a tank line much as you would a pawn wall in chess. It's a line of units that provide board control and force the opponent to be mindful of how they approach that wall. The slow and methodical push of a tank line is much like the slow advances of a pawn.
I wont touch on ZvZ as you hardly mention it yourself, but I hope I've given you some decent counterarguments to ponder. Again, the analogy between Chess and SC is far from perfect, but there is plenty of reason why people make it so often.
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On March 11 2013 06:35 Tictock wrote:Show nested quote +- in chess, advantages escalate, if two players are of similar skill and A has an advantage, A will be able to run with it easily and get a bigger and bigger lead. At decently high level chess, most people surrender after their first major mistake if they even make one. In chess, one mistake and you lose, there is no coming back almost from an actual clear mistake.
- in go, advantages neutralize between two players of similar skill if the game goes on and on, advantages can barely be used to stretch out further advantages compared to chess. What constitutes a 'mistake' is less clear and the game certainly isn't over after one.
Starcraft, like chess, tends to have escalating advantages. If the player who wins the first engagement, or eeks out an advantage, does not make any big mistakes they will almost certainly take the game. This is why when a one basing player who launches a big attack leaves if that attack is held off, they know they are too far behind to take a base and play on. Indeed, but I'm talking with respect to TvT, I argue that TvT is the starcraft matchup the least like chess and ZvZ the one that is the most like chess, surely we can agree that advantages escalate the most in ZvZ and the least in TvT?
Show nested quote +- chess is very quick burning. It gets hot from the start, white opens, blacks next move is already a direct response, white is again forced to respond to that. It's a reactionary game from the get go.
- go contrasting is more slow burning to get going, the first initial moves are barely responses to each other and it takes time for the game to get going and for people's opening plans to unravel. I suppose here Go feels more similar to SC as the first few minuets of the game tends to be pretty mapped out and the players are just setting up their later strategies, of course there can be a lot of action early on and important things start happening after a couple of minuets.
Show nested quote +- in chess, it is extremely rare for a player with a material disadvantage, less and less valuable pieces on the board to still be considered 'ahead', sure it happens, but it's quite rare and if it's true it's 2 pawns at best. That or the player is in the process of employing a winning tactic where he or she sacriced some material because he or she knows 100% certain it can be forced back.
- in go, it is very normal for a player with a material advantage to be considered in a very bad position. It's not about how many stones you have, it's about where you have them. Pretty much the same as your first point just flipped on it's head, again SC is very much like chess in this regard.
Show nested quote +- chess is a destructive game, you remove pieces from the board mostly, as the game goes on it becomes less and less interactive and aggressive, less and less exchanges of pieces
- go is a constructive game, you add pieces to the board mostly, as the game goes on interaction happens more and more and more and more and more capturing of pieces occurs. This is where SC shows that it's its own animal. The game starts slow as the bases and armies get built up, but ultimately the goal is to destroy the enemies army and eventually bases. So you could argue either way.
Show nested quote +- in chess there is almost no such thing as a 'defenders advantage', the entire concept of attacking and defending is extremely blurred, often attacks are the best defence in chess, someone threatens to attack you? You don't defend, you threaten an even more powerful attack that forces attention back to that.
- go has a very strong concept of defenders advantage, you are the strongest where you have the most territitory positioned well. While this one is possibly arguable, I feel chess is again the better analogy. While it's true that there is a defender's advantage in SC it's not always well defined. Basically past the faster rally point (which is negated by things like Nydus worms and Warpgate) and high ground advantage (negated by vision) there is not a clear defender's advantage. Also much like in chess you can abuse threats of attack to pull your opponent out of position.
TvT then gets special treatment being compared to chess due to the nature of Tank vs Tank battles (which was a much more frequent in Brood War to SC2 mind you, and I believe this analogy originates from BW). You can look at a tank line much as you would a pawn wall in chess. It's a line of units that provide board control and force the opponent to be mindful of how they approach that wall. The slow and methodical push of a tank line is much like the slow advances of a pawn. It still applies a lot more to moving stones forward in go.
I wont touch on ZvZ as you hardly mention it yourself, but I hope I've given you some decent counterarguments to ponder. Again, the analogy between Chess and SC is far from perfect, but there is plenty of reason why people make it so often. But I'm not making an analogy between SC and chess, but pointing out why of all SC matchups, TvT is the least like chess and the most like go, and ZvZ is the most like chess, and the least like go. This applies in BW as much as WoL as HotS.
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I appreciate your comparison between chess and go. It makes me want to learn to play go. The things I dislike about chess you name quite clearly, namely the 'fast burning' reactionary nature, and also the constant attention to "if-then, if-then". It sounds like go is a lot less confrontational and aggressive.
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People do this because chess is better known in western culture and is generally linked to high intelligence, making the thing to which they're comparing it seem more intellectual. People will draw comparisons between chess and ANYTHING that involves any kind of strategy, regardless of how dissimilar the two things actually are.
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On March 11 2013 18:26 GolemMadness wrote:
People do this because chess is better known in western culture and is generally linked to high intelligence, making the thing to which they're comparing it seem more intellectual. People will draw comparisons between chess and ANYTHING that involves any kind of strategy, regardless of how dissimilar the two things actually are. Pretty much, but I don't think anyone denies that ZvZ doesn't take strategy or intelligence, most people recognise that ZvZ is a very brainy matchup that relies on very precise reads of your opponent and responses to it. People often link the positional siege lines of TvT to chess but that's pretty much all chess isn't really about.
Not going to argue if go or chess are better though, Personally interestingly enough I like go more than chess but ZvZ more than TvT. But it's hard to deny that ZvZ is more like chess and TvT is more like go.
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I play both chess and go, and here's one fact I learned - when chess in mentioned in front of a go player, their brain shuts down and they start spouting complete crap. Compared to that, OP's post actually seems very well thought out and logical, so kudos for that  .
I completely disagree with your point about tactics however. Both games are extremely tactically heavy and tactically superior player can completely demolish someone weaker than him by just playing aggressively until your opponent can't keep up. Also take a look at suggested training methods - study life and death, tsumego. Even pros spend most of their time studying life and death so yeah. You can't keep track of shit in chess too, anyone who tells otherwise is full of crap  .
Computer argument, lol. Go players keep using this to demonstrate go superiority, but it's just silly. Things that are complex for computers are not necessarily hard for humans. For example, consider RTS games. Computers have extremely hard time in those because they have infinite mathematical complexity. You could derive from this, by using your logic, that for example, sc2 > go, which is nonsense, they are different games complex in their different ways. Comparing them directly is just, uhhh, stupid.
Advantages escalate in go in the exactly same way as in chess. One pawn might not be game deciding 10 moves in, but it sure is in the endgame. Very same thing in go. 10 points can be easily overcome during the course of game, but in the endgame it's decisive.
in chess, it is extremely rare for a player with a material disadvantage, less and less valuable pieces on the board to still be considered 'ahead', sure it happens, but it's quite rare and if it's true it's 2 pawns at best. That or the player is in the process of employing a winning tactic where he or she sacriced some material because he or she knows 100% certain it can be forced back.
No offense OP, but this just shows how inexperienced you are at chess. Two pawns is huuuuuuuge advantage, and one pawn is usually considered a winning position, other things being equal. You don't see 20 stone group sacrifices in go very often either, so please.
Meh, this turned way more ranty than I expected, sorry. It's just so annoying. One day I go to a go club and people shit on chess, other day I go to chess club and people shit on go. Both groups also often use the same arguments which is hilarious. Chess vs go arguments are about as sound as sc2 vs dota or whatever, to put it into perspective. People just ignore everything good about the "other" game and just shit on what they don't like, usually while having no clue what they're actually talking about.
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There is almost zero tactical play in go compared to positional play.
This is so wrong ... let me explain a bit :
- Early fights for the corners are called Joseki and could be grossly compared with chess openings and your StarCraft build orders (99% of go games starts focusing on the corners, then the sides, then the middle). Those can be studied but there are thousands of differents joseki with many variations. It is of course impossible to know them all, game evolve, some joseki are considered old because one's position is nowadays considered stronger. The principle of a joseki is that the result is different for each player while being even (one may have secured territory but the other have a powerful Shape, or an influence toward a side or the middle.
- Early positional play in go is called Fuseki, this is more about the global position that you have with the few stones already in the corners that will evolve in complete joseki, how they will interact with each other, allowing you to develop on the sides. Fuseki is the early game strategy.
- Personally I know few hundreds of joseki and variations (including very basics stuff, in fact I am a very low level player), this means most of my games I have to think about positions and calculate the moves, read the possibilities, just like chess tactic. This happens during all the game, at some points, when the corners evolve beyond the joseki, in many different situations, one's corner could be in danger and players have to calculate which moves can save it or kill it, of course they have to calculate every possibilities in order to find the most advantageous possibility (more points) this is called Tsumego. This is very similar to chess tactical play.
- There are 361 possible spot where you can play when a game hasn't started, if there is 100 move played with 0 captured stones, there are a maximum of 261 possibilities for your next move, some free intersections are forbiden (you can't suicide your own stones, I believe some old rules allow it but chinese and japanese rules don't), some others just make no sense, but there still are many intersection possible and by calculating (just like chess tactic), you can find powerful that is only about tactical play, not about positional play. Those moves are called Tesuji.
- In the end game, when all remaining moves are about closing the territories (this is called the Yose), you need to spot all the remaining moves, count how many points they all worth, check the order and play them so you can have the best result possible (in that case, when you don't play a move, if your opponent plays it, he will get points..). You have to check all the Sente and Gote moves (to make it short, a sente move is a move that if you play, your opponent has to defend or he will be at disadvantage, but you have to consider this in the global situation, maybe if he doesn't reply to the move, he will be at disadvantage locally but has a better move to play elsewhere. Gote is the opposite). All this is about calculating, reading the possibilities and evaluating the situation.
StarCraft and Chess are about defeating your opponent, Go is about doing better than him. Maybe you don't understand but this is different. Also, I am not saying all I said is true, this is my vision of Go, the one I have been taught. There might be other vision of the game or my understanding might just not fit how the game truly is played.
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On March 11 2013 22:51 IMlemon wrote:I completely disagree with your point about tactics however. Both games are extremely tactically heavy and tactically superior player can completely demolish someone weaker than him by just playing aggressively until your opponent can't keep up. Also take a look at suggested training methods - study life and death, tsumego. Even pros spend most of their time studying life and death so yeah. You can't keep track of shit in chess too, anyone who tells otherwise is full of crap . As positional play is important in both chess and ZvZ, so are tactics in both go and TvT. the point is that chess and ZvZ put waaaaaaaaay more emphasis on tactics and TvT and go put waaay more emphasis on positional play. Like I said in the op, I'm not denying both plays don't feature heavy tactics and positional play.
Computer argument, lol. Go players keep using this to demonstrate go superiority, but it's just silly. Things that are complex for computers are not necessarily hard for humans. For example, consider RTS games. Computers have extremely hard time in those because they have infinite mathematical complexity. You could derive from this, by using your logic, that for example, sc2 > go, which is nonsense, they are different games complex in their different ways. Comparing them directly is just, uhhh, stupid. Where did I ever use this an argument to say any game is 'better'?
Computers are just bad at fuzzy logic, human beings aren't. Positional play is fuzzy logic, tactics are hard exact calculations which human beings are bad at, that's all. I'm using it as an argument that go is more positional than chess, computers are worse at it.
Advantages escalate in go in the exactly same way as in chess. One pawn might not be game deciding 10 moves in, but it sure is in the endgame. Very same thing in go. 10 points can be easily overcome during the course of game, but in the endgame it's decisive. Advantages in go aren't nearly as escalating in chess. If you loose a knight in chess out of no-where you might as well surrender right there. A capture without an even trade in chess means a sure loss, that's just not the case in go. In high level chess matches it takes an expert to analyse the board and see who is 'ahead' until the very end because both players are very even until the very end because as soon as one player gets minutely ahead the other surrenders. In high level go matches there is more back and forth with people being ahead and coming back at another point. In chess there is no back and fourth. It's basically very hard to determine who is going to win because the game stays extremely even because it's over the moment it breaks from that.
Show nested quote +
in chess, it is extremely rare for a player with a material disadvantage, less and less valuable pieces on the board to still be considered 'ahead', sure it happens, but it's quite rare and if it's true it's 2 pawns at best. That or the player is in the process of employing a winning tactic where he or she sacriced some material because he or she knows 100% certain it can be forced back.
No offense OP, but this just shows how inexperienced you are at chess. Two pawns is huuuuuuuge advantage, and one pawn is usually considered a winning position, other things being equal. You don't see 20 stone group sacrifices in go very often either, so please.
In chess it is extremely rare for a player with a material disadvantage to still be considered ahead?
If you lead with 2 points you are hugely ahead, that's what I just said. It's possible to beat 2 pawns ahead and still be even by some spectacularly better positioning. Sacrificing a single pawn for a better position however is quite a common gambit.
Meh, this turned way more ranty than I expected, sorry. It's just so annoying. One day I go to a go club and people shit on chess, other day I go to chess club and people shit on go. Both groups also often use the same arguments which is hilarious. Chess vs go arguments are about as sound as sc2 vs dota or whatever, to put it into perspective. People just ignore everything good about the "other" game and just shit on what they don't like, usually while having no clue what they're actually talking about. I'm not saying that any game is better? I'm saying one game is more like TvT and one is more like ZvZ.
And for the record, I personally like go and ZvZ more than chess and TvT but obviously love all 4. that'smy personal opinion, I'm not going to say which is 'better' from that.
On March 12 2013 00:56 E.L.V.I.S wrote:This is so wrong ... let me explain a bit : - Early fights for the corners are called Joseki and could be grossly compared with chess openings and your StarCraft build orders (99% of go games starts focusing on the corners, then the sides, then the middle). Those can be studied but there are thousands of differents joseki with many variations. It is of course impossible to know them all, game evolve, some joseki are considered old because one's position is nowadays considered stronger. The principle of a joseki is that the result is different for each player while being even (one may have secured territory but the other have a powerful Shape, or an influence toward a side or the middle. - Early positional play in go is called Fuseki, this is more about the global position that you have with the few stones already in the corners that will evolve in complete joseki, how they will interact with each other, allowing you to develop on the sides. Fuseki is the early game strategy. - Personally I know few hundreds of joseki and variations (including very basics stuff, in fact I am a very low level player), this means most of my games I have to think about positions and calculate the moves, read the possibilities, just like chess tactic. This happens during all the game, at some points, when the corners evolve beyond the joseki, in many different situations, one's corner could be in danger and players have to calculate which moves can save it or kill it, of course they have to calculate every possibilities in order to find the most advantageous possibility (more points) this is called Tsumego. This is very similar to chess tactical play. - There are 361 possible spot where you can play when a game hasn't started, if there is 100 move played with 0 captured stones, there are a maximum of 261 possibilities for your next move, some free intersections are forbiden (you can't suicide your own stones, I believe some old rules allow it but chinese and japanese rules don't), some others just make no sense, but there still are many intersection possible and by calculating (just like chess tactic), you can find powerful that is only about tactical play, not about positional play. Those moves are called Tesuji. - In the end game, when all remaining moves are about closing the territories (this is called the Yose), you need to spot all the remaining moves, count how many points they all worth, check the order and play them so you can have the best result possible (in that case, when you don't play a move, if your opponent plays it, he will get points..). You have to check all the Sente and Gote moves (to make it short, a sente move is a move that if you play, your opponent has to defend or he will be at disadvantage, but you have to consider this in the global situation, maybe if he doesn't reply to the move, he will be at disadvantage locally but has a better move to play elsewhere. Gote is the opposite). All this is about calculating, reading the possibilities and evaluating the situation. StarCraft and Chess are about defeating your opponent, Go is about doing better than him. Maybe you don't understand but this is different. Also, I am not saying all I said is true, this is my vision of Go, the one I have been taught. There might be other vision of the game or my understanding might just not fit how the game truly is played. Again, I'm not denying that go has tactics, tactics are simply less important than positional play with respect to chess.
Geez, why does everyone seem to think that because I say that chess has more tactics that means I say go has no tactics. Or when I say go has more positional play that I then mean to say chess has no positional play.
As I said above, obviously TvT, ZvZ, Go and Chess all feature heavy tactics and positional play and you need to master both to be good at any of the four. But TvT and Go focus more on positional play and ZvZ and chess more on tactical play.
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You said there is almost zero tactic in go compared to positional play, this is simply not true and I explained.
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Granted then 'almost zero' is an excessive hyperbole. It was not my intention to convey that go has no tactical play, its importance is just very little compared to chess. To go back to the computer analogy. If you program a computer to basically think 8 steps ahead and always pick the route which in 8 steps will lead to the largest material advantage that computer still plays a game of chess that can beat a lot of human chess players. Such a thing isn't possible in go because in chess tactics simply matter a lot more than in go and in go positional play matters more.
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Look, I am not trying to take you down or anything, it is just than "tactic" is the most important side of Go in my opinion... But I agree with the rest you said about go.
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EPT
