This is chess

This post is some time overdue since I actually waited for a post of Phaedrus to throw this into the discussion. But since he needs more time I decided to make room in my head.

Quality and frequency.
I already told you about two important parameters of pattern recognition: quality and frequency.
Quality is about how decisive the recognition of the pattern is for the result of the game.
Frequency is about how often you encounter the pattern in a game.

Area.
There is a third parameter though: area.
Chess is divided in different area's like tactics, strategy, endgame and a lot where we have no name for. I'm pretty familiar with the most frequent patterns in the tactical area, but I used to be quite ignorant in other area's of the game.
Until lately I started to show some lapses in my ignorance due to study.
Yesterday I played a game against an opponent who is known for his tactical tricks. He had the following approach: he tried to lure me in a trick, and if that wouldn't happen he would try to trade off pieces in an attempt to draw. But I kept the complexity level low and simply avoided his tricks. He clearly had no clue what to do in such positions. He had no plan B. He wrecked his pawnstructure and started to trade pieces off towards what he thought to be a draw. But with no pieces on the board it would be a lost pawnending so I cooperated happily and won the game.

This shows that no matter how much patterns you know and how well, if it are patterns of the wrong area you will simply screw up. Even the little positional knowledge I learned from my latest experiments was a enough for a simple win. And he still doesn't know what hit him.
This is really satisfying. This is chess.

An article about the previous posts is in the making.