When a brand new player starts out, the board is huge and intimidating. So the player begins to try and break it down, isolating the various components into a series of smaller "tactical bubbles." This gives her a tunnel-like focus, frequently following wherever the opponent has played last. At the very beginning, this focus is extremely narrow to the point where things that have a tremendous influence on the fight and are right next door to that bubble are ignored.
As the player gets stronger three things happen:
The player begins to be able to track multiple tactical bubbles at the same time.
These bubbles can overlap and move around, but do not jump as much with where the opponent has last moved.
The tactical bubbles grow larger. They begin to encompass adjacent stones, adjacent groups, surrounding groups, and groups that affect ladders.
Eventually the player realizes that she is kicking ass tactically but still losing games to stronger players. She begins to focus on strategy. This "strategic bubble" operates in the exact reverse of the tactical bubbles: the initial strategic bubble encompasses the entire board. Issues such as broad direction of play, ala Otake Hideo's Opening Theory Made Easy, start to become important. The emphasis at the beginning is on picking the correct side and on what can be considered "big plays."
As the player gets stronger the tactical bubbles get larger. "Will the ladder work" is considered more moves in advance, for example. Meanwhile the strategic bubbles get smaller and more refined: will developing this group end up hurting that group, etc.
Eventually these concepts also start to blur and blend together.
Just random musings from a long time ago that I've been revisiting.
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