What and How as Determined by Why

Tactics is "how" it gets done. "How" can be something as grandiose as a queen sacrifice for a mating attack on your opponent's king or something as obscure as determining the proper move order to place a knight on an advanced outpost. "How" is the actual conversion of temporary positional advantages into permanent advantages. Since you cannot win a chess game without permanent advantages, you must always be on the lookout for opportunties to convert temporary to permanent.

Strategy sets the stage for tactics and tells you "what" to do. "What" is always an idea. "What" can be something like occupying that knight outpost or exchanging a bad bishop, etc. The "what" must always be attended to and the "how" is the way to do it.

"What" and "how" define the game of chess. But, to properly understand "what" and "how," one must know "why." "Why" describes the learning process in chess. The more "why" that you understand, the better your "what" and "how" will be. "Why" is the reason chess study, practical play, and post analysis of your games is so important. Also, "why" must focus on both the "what" and the "how," although at the class level the "how" is the most important.