Strategy and Tactics 101

In the post President Obama still represents change I believe in, I claimed that President Obama is a strategic thinker and that the Bush Administration was all reactive tactics, particularly in the execution of its “War on Terror.” In this, rather longish post, I will begin to discuss what strategic thinking is and how to develop a strategic plan. In a later post I will apply these concepts to critique the War on Terror and the issue of Torture.

Strategic thinking starts with a clear picture of what you intend to achieve: your goal and supporting objectives. It includes a careful analysis of your initial resources, underlying structures, your obstacles, and your competition (for outcomes, resources and processes) and developing a course of action that maximizes your chances of success. It develops clear principles that guide and develop boundaries on your range of actions, but doesn’t dictate specific ones. Tactics deals with specific decisions and applications of resources that move you towards your objective while effectively reacting to adversaries or adversarial conditions. Tactics are always implemented in the context of strategy. I’m going to illustrate strategic thinking using two games: Tic-Tac-Toe and Chess.

Tic-Tac-Toe

Let’s systematically develop the best strategy for playing Tic-Tac-Toe, a game in which you have a single adversary and a simple objective: to place three X’s in a straight line while preventing your adversary from placing three O’s in a line first. One of you starts by marking an X or O in any of the 9 squares, and then you alternately place X’s and O’s in the remaining squares until one of you wins, or until it’s clear that neither of you can win, in which case the game goes to the cat.

There are only 8 ways to win at Tic-tac-toe: by creating one of 4 straight lines around the periphery, or one of 4 lines through the center. (Fig. a)  The playing field (underlying structure) is symmetrical so that there are only three categories of squares: one center (C), four corners (D) and four edges (e). (Fig. b)  The center square is part of 4 winning outcomes, each corner square is part of 3 winning outcomes and each edge square is part of 2 winning outcomes. Occupying a square has both an offensive and defensive value in that it simultaneously enhances your options for success and reduces those of your opponent. You can use numbers (Fig. c) or visualize the center square as a hill 8 units high (4 units for offense and 4 defense), the corner squares as 6 units high and the edge squares as 4 units high. The center is the high ground, the corners lower ridges and the edge squares are the valleys. Obviously, the most productive first move is to take the high ground and force your opponent to skulk around the periphery where success is virtually impossible and disaster is always one mistake away. Of course, if your opponent moves first and takes the high ground, you will have to do the skulking. Clearly, the first move confers an advantage, generally referred to as a “tempo” or time advantage, but in Tic-Tac-Toe this advantage does not assure a win, although it does allow you to place your X anywhere and still not lose.  The first to move has freedom of choice while the second to move starts out under the gun.

If you’re the first to move and place X in the center (well done!) your opponent has only two responses: to place O in one of the four corners or to place it in one of the four edge positions. One of these responses is your quick path to victory!  A corner move now has a relative value of 5 to your opponent because it initiates two possible winning outcomes (out of the 4 remaining to the O’s) and blocks one of your four lines through the center and two of the remaining 4 on the periphery. An edge move has a value of 3 because it starts one possible winning outcome, blocks one of your four choices through the center and one choice on the periphery. Any guess as to which move should cost your opponent the game? 

Just to illustrate the point, let’s assume your opponent responds to your first move with O on an edge. (Fig. d ) The only way you can avoid winning outright is to place your X on the opposite edge from the O! (The question mark indicates a blunder.) Every other second move puts two X’s in a line, which threatens an immediate victory by you that forces your opponent to block you with his second O. (Figs. e,f,g) Your third move can then simultaneously threaten two wins of which your opponent can block only one.  (Work through the various options, once you get the hang of it you’ll find it difficult to make a move that doesn’t win.)

On the other hand, if your opponent puts his first O in any corner, you can’t force a win, but you can force a draw and perhaps induce your opponent to lose. You can force a draw by taking the highest ground available, any of the remaining three corners. If you place your X at either or the two corners adjacent to your opponent’s O, you force your opponent to block you at a corner which in turn forces you to block, etc. and you’ll have a cat game. (Fig. h)  However, the best choice of corners is the corner opposite the O because it doesn’t force a specific response from your opponent  and thereby allows him to make a mistake. (Fig. i) With best play by your opponent ― which is to take one of the two remaining corners; the highest ground available― the game will be a draw. However, should your opponent chose one of the four valleys for the second O, victory is once again yours!

With the preceding explanation about the strategic concepts of high ground and tempo and how to apply them, you should never again lose a game of Tic-Tac-Toe and you can knowingly give your opponents opportunities to lose. But of course the larger point is to illustrate the conscious and deliberate process of strategic thinking from goals, to possible outcomes based on structure and rules, to strategic principles, to specific adaptive tactics. The alternative to this process, one which most people unconsciously use for Tic-Tac-Toe and more important things in life (including the War on Terror) is that of trial and error. In games like Tic-Tac-Toe where you can play many times, and the real objective is to have fun with someone else, undisciplined trial and error can serve you well. In real life management of business or politics, you normally get only one chance, and strategic thinking is vital to success.  But first, I’ll add to concepts of strategy and tactics using the game of chess.

Chess

Chess is a much more complicated than Tic-Tac-Toe, but its similarities and differences will further illustrate the most effective relationships between strategy and tactics. Both games are played on squares: Tic-Tac-Toe has 9 squares, the chessboard has 64 squares. Both involve two opponents who alternately make single moves. Both involve clearly defined objectives and both often end in draws.

Chess is a classic game of war between two equal opposing armies on a field of battle. Victory is defined as Checkmating your opponent’s King (that is threatening to capture it on the next move in a way that can’t be stopped ) while preventing your opponent from Checkmating your own King first.

The strategic concept of seizing control of high ground, at the center of the chessboard, is similar to that of the center square in Tic-Tac-Toe.  Without control of the chess board’s center, one is force to skulk around on the periphery. White, who always moves first has a tempo advantage that is more subtle than it is in Tic-Tac-Toe. In other words, games well played by both players most frequently end in draws. However, the concept of gaining or losing tempi (the plural of tempo) during the game is a vital part of chess strategy and tactics. To some extent, tempi are like intellectual property, invisible resources for which you might trade pieces or position. You can be behind in material (the pieces that make up your army) and control little of the battlefield, but if you can checkmate your opponent even just move (one tempo) before he can checkmate you, victory is yours.  (There are even situations in chess as there are in Bridge―being end-played for example― where having to make the next move will cost you the game….usually the result of the expert manipulation of tempi by the winner).

Other differences make Chess closer to real life and make strategic thinking more vital. In Tic-Tac-Toe, placing your X in the center seizes control of the center, occupies it and maintains control for the duration of the game. In Chess, as in war, seizing control of, occupying and maintaining control of the high ground or any other physical or conceptual territory are three different things.  One can control the high ground without occupying it, and one can sometimes occupy the high ground without controlling it―usually a recipe for defeat. One can temporarily control or occupy part of the battlefield and then lose control at a critical time. The ebb and flow of battle includes these and other changes of fortune.

Chess opens with two armies that are poorly arrayed for battle. The strong pieces are hidden behind foot soldiers (the pawns) and unable to move except for knights which can jump over the pawns. The two Kings are relatively vulnerable and in the way. The opening series of moves generally combines a race for control of the center (usually resulting in a reasonably even division of control), improving the Kings’ safety while getting them out of the way of the big guns (curiously the biggest guns are the Queens), and getting the big guns into positions where they can maneuver in concert with pawns and other pieces to do damage.  These are opening strategies for which there are a myriad of tactical implementations.

Competent chess players make each move according to overall strategies suited to their temperaments ― some are aggressive and enjoy taking risks, others are careful and stodgy waiting for an opponent to slip up― and suggested by studying chess principles but with an eye on the opponent’s position and temperament, on his most likely or most damaging moves several moves ahead while ready to make appropriate adjustments or to seize on obvious blunders. There are opening strategies, as described above, mid-game strategies which involve the heat of battle and a substantial loss of forces on both sides, and end-game strategies played out with the remaining pieces (assuming no one was checkmated in either the opening or mid-game).

Sometimes one chess player can force the response of his opponent, just as in Tic-Tac-Toe when a player with two X’s or O’s in a row forces his opponent to occupy the third square in that row. Sometimes he can create a trap which tempts a mistake or a complex position that maximizes the potential for his opponent to make a weak move. Sometimes he can sacrifice a pawn or a piece to gain control of space or to gain tempi that later return greater reward.

I will confess to having been passionate about chess during my high school years; playing over-the-board in smoke filled clubs, 20 or more games at a time by mail and occasionally blindfolded against weaker players. The passion waned in college, but I had learned and internalized key lessons about strategy and tactics which were later useful in business. One lesson of the game, which is considered conventional wisdom, is that a “threat” is often more powerful than its execution. That is, if your opponent poses a threat to do something, you don’t know when he will do it or if he will find something better to do and you must be prepared for all options. If he executes the threat he has committed to that option and you can focus on effectively responding to it.

I also learned several vital lessons from the writings of Aron Nimzovitch, a Danish Grandmaster, about key strategies that apply to chess and which I later applied to business: overprotection, prophylaxis and indirect control of the center―all of which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. 

Overprotection goes like this: important pieces or squares on the chess board are normally protected in as many ways as they are attacked. If three pieces attack your bishop you must defend it with three pieces or it can (usually) be captured with impunity. The three defenders are immobilized by this responsibility. However, if you overprotect your bishop with a fourth defender, then any of the four defenders is free to take on other responsibilities! Overprotection confers flexibility. I used this principle at the executive management level: cross training top executives to enable each of them (including myself) to take three month sabbaticals every five years while other members of the team covered for the one on sabbatical. When peers give each other freedom, rather than simply attend to their own domains, executive teams function better and with less parochialism.

Prophylaxis is the act of making moves which impede your opponent’s plans. In Tic-Tac-Toe, as in chess, good moves are as much about blocking your opponent’s moves as they are about furthering your own agenda.

 Indirect control of the center: Prior to Nimzovich, conventional wisdom taught that control of the center went with its occupation by pawns. He demonstrated with victory after victory that one could, in the opening moves, effectively enhance and maintain control of center from a distance, particularly with bishops and knights.  Air power is an example of indirect control of high ground.

As in life, no combination of chess strategies and tactics are certain to succeed; however there are some combinations that almost always fail.  The most common losing approach is that of tactics without strategy; the failing of most amateurs who tend to move pieces without a clear objective or a sense of control of the center, or king’s safety, or tempi or a clear understanding of ultimate objectives. (This approach, as I will demonstrate in the next post, is how we have conducted the “War on terror” for the last 8 years).  Another is petrified strategy without tactics; a failing of ultra-conservative players who don’t think strategically but treat principles as rules and can’t adapt to a competitor’s temperament, competence, tactics and strategies―a major reason for the ongoing financial crisis. The best chess players and most effective leaders combine sound strategies with excellent tactics.

9/8/2009

Edwin Lee
edwinlee@znet.com