{"id":18379,"date":"2025-08-04T03:48:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T03:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/strategy-and-tactics\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:31","slug":"strategy-and-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/strategy-and-tactics\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategy and tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n
Black to move and win<\/div>\n

\u201cStrategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory,\u201d opined Sun Tzu in the Art of War.<\/em> \u201cTactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please try to find black\u2019s best winning strategy in this week\u2019s position. The tactics will follow.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s two connected passed pawns are a dark cloud on the horizon. Their king heralds them. Black can check white mercilessly but that just stops the rain, as it were.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s best plan involves embracing the power and speed of the rook and moving its rook to h1 or h2 on the other side of the board. From there, the rook employs its ability to dominate an entire file or row, and the tactics follow naturally from white\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

For example, a natural reply for white to rook to h1 is to move its a6 pawn to a7, checking black. The black king steps back into the corner on a8. White moves its king to c7 and black checks white from c1 (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

This check forces the white king to the \u201cd\u201d file and away from its pawn. Black\u2019s king seizes the b7 square and white watches helplessly as black\u2019s rook and king gobble up white\u2019s pawns.<\/p>\n

After black slides his rook to h1, white could move its king to b5 instead. Black\u2019s rook slides over to a1. If white replies with pawn to b7, white creates a hole in its position on a7, which the black king occupies. White cannot defend its a6 pawn and lacks the strength to save its b7 pawn.<\/p>\n

As an alternative to responding to black\u2019s rook to a1 with pawn to b7, white may play pawn to a7 instead. Black\u2019s king seizes the b7 square again and white is again helpless against black\u2019s rook and king (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Swinging the rook around the board eventually coordinates the rook and king in a winning strategy. In life, too, a good plan may entail repositioning yourself.<\/p>\n

Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com<\/a> or (505) 327-7121.<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

to move and win \u201cStrategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory,\u201d opined Sun Tzu in the Art of War. \u201cTactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.\u201d Please try to find black\u2019s best winning strategy in this week\u2019s position. The tactics will follow. White\u2019s two connected passed pawns are a dark cloud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-18379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20556,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18379\/revisions\/20556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18379"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=18379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}