Analysis of chess using Tasks

There is a certain strategy I have found super useful in chess which is analyzing the game in terms of the jobs the pieces have to do called tasks. One particular example of why this can be critical in a game is the case of the back row mate. In this case there is a rook preventing a back row mate in the back and a rook or a queen attacking the back row. In this case the rook has the very important task of preventing a back row mate. If the rook is also doing something like protecting a knight not on the back row, then it also has an important task of protecting the knight. In this case if you are attacking the knight then you can safely take the knight with any piece, even the queen, because if the opponent recaptures with the rook, the rook will abandon its protection from the backrow math and it will immediately be checkmate. In this particular case the rook is said to be overloaded because it has two tasks that it can't satisfy at the same time. The advantage of analyzing chess using tasks, is that it opens you perspective, and makes it possible to sometimes see moves you may have overlooked before. For example in the previous case you may overlook the possibility of capturing the Knight with the queen because it most other contexts it would be unwise lose the Queen, but if you analyze the game using jobs, you are more likely to notice the the rook is overloaded. This article goes over some of the mathematics and strategy of analyzing the game using the jobs paradigm, and hopefully if you are a chess player after reading you will have learned a couple strategies that can improve your game. Even if you are not a chess player personally I think that training your brain to think about chess can help with critical thinking and problem solving in life.

Definitions

Task: This is a generally as possible anything you hope to accomplish from including specific tasks like winning the game (checkmate) capturing a piece, and abstract tasks like gaining control of the center, and weakening your opponents pawn structure.

Task Count: An estimate of the number of tasks a particular move accomplishes. For this you can simply count the number of important tasks a move accomplishes and use the count as a guide for trying to decide between two moves.

Specific Task: A task that is clearly defined as a sequence of moves. This is usually involved it tactics (short term specific goals) as opposed to strategy (long term general goals).

Abstract Task: A task that is harder to define specifically and is related to a general plan. This is usually involved in strategy as opposed to tactics.

Piece Task: This is a specific tasks that is accomplished by a single piece. This definition is slightly ambiguous, so it works better for specific tasks.

Sentinel Task: This is a task that a piece currently does just by being in a particular position. Examples include guarding a piece and guarding against a checkmate.

Instant Task: This is a task that is accomplished in a single move. Examples include moving the King out of check and capturing a piece. In general these are more likely to be specific tasks.

Long Term Task: This is a task that must be accomplished in a sequence of more that one move. Examples include moving the King a greater distance that one square, clearing the pieces so that castling is possible. In general these are more likely to be abstract tasks.

Blunder: In chess this is a subjective term that generally refers to a huge mistake. It can be defined in terms of tasks as anytime you have a task that would have completed if you had known, but because of your unawareness didn't. Note that if you had complete knowledge you would never maker blunders (like a computer).

Trap: In chess this refers to a point in which one has no good decisions available. It can be defined in terms of tasks as anytime you have a task that you would like to complete, but can't.

Overload: In chess this refers to a point when you have multiple decisions, but every one will have a bad consequence. In can be defined in terms of tasks and anytime one has multiple tasks that they would like to complete but can't.

Move Overload: This is when a player has multiple instant tasks they would like to complete that cannot be executed in one move. One very important example is a fork, in which two pieces are being attacked and only one can move away in time. This can be thought of as a generalized fork, for example if you move a piece so that it is attacking an opponents piece and threatening checkmate, that this isn't a true fork, but it is a lot like one.

Fork: A specific type of move overload in which a piece is moved so that it is attacking two pieces at the same time and both cannot move away at once. Note that under this definition pins, and skewers also count as forks, and it is still considered a fork even if it can be escaped from. Examples of escaping from forks include moving one of the forked pieces to protect the other and moving one of the forked pieces to check the opponent's King and after that moving the other.

Piece Overload: This is when a single piece has multiple tasks to complete and can't complete both of them. A good example is the rook, backrow mate case. Note that these tasks don't have to be instant. A good example of a long term piece overload is when the King is trying to catch two Pawns and only has time to reach one of them.

These definitions are useful not only in Chess, but in Games in General. The concepts of Blunders, Traps, and Overloads can be applied in almost any game (even Solitaire), and concepts like forks come up in other board games like Checkers.

One of the biggest uses to Task Analysis is finding piece overload opportunities or preventing a piece overload in your own pieces. One way to do this is to simply look at your opponent's pieces one at a time and for each one count the number of sentinel tasks that piece is preforming, and then see if any of the pieces are overloaded or if you can find a way to overload them. This is also useful is the task of destroying the guard which is a special type of overload in which you find a particular piece that is preventing a huge task you would like to accomplish and you capture the piece, possibly even sacrificing an important piece like the Queen to accomplish a very important task like giving Checkmate. Task Analysis can be very useful when deciding to make a sacrifice. This is typically a risky move and sometimes avoided by newer players, and often times when a sacrifice is worth it is in a specific case of overload like the destroying the guard case. If you are playing through the strategy of trying to expose the opponents King (the King Hunt strategy) in the midgame Task Analysis can be very useful in determining which pieces guarding the King you need to capture.

Another use of Task Analysis is deciding between moves. This is useful in the opening where you have many tasks you would like to accomplish in as few moves as possible. In the opening there is often a small set of best moves which is why certain openings featuring combinations of these moves are played over and over again. In the opening one often wants to decide between them. One way to try to decide between moves is to find the task count for each more you are considering. For example in the opening White may want to move a Knight out of the starting position to the c3 position. In hypothetical game you could make a list of the tasks this move accomplishes.

Advancing the Knight

Taking control of two center squares

Opening up room to castle later

In addition depending on the setup of the game there may be more things this accomplishes like

Attacking an opponent's piece

Protecting one's own piece

Blocking Check

If in our hypothetical game this accomplished all except Blocking Check than the task count for this move would be 5 which is fairly high. If you were trying to decide between this and another move with task count 4 you could use this guide to decide the Knight. One drawback is that this doesn't have a weighting based on the importance of the task. If you want in you calculations you can try to assign a weighting for example giving a more important task 2 points instead of 1.

Task Analysis can be very useful in finding overloads and making decisions. The three main uses are

Finding potential overloads in one's opponent's pieces

Finding potential overloads in one's own pieces

Using a piece count to decide between moves.

If you play chess you can give these strategies a try and see if they improve your playing. They also can work in other games and even sports.