IMO, at the highest levels of chess, there has always been a focus on "positioning" (positional chess) over material. World Champions like Capablanca, Botvinnik

IMO, at the highest levels of chess, there has always been a focus on "positioning" (positional chess) over material. World Champions like Capablanca, Botvinnik, Karpov, and Kramnik all play/ed in a style that was postionally sound, and at times boa-constrictor like. If you want to be a grandmaster today, you have to be able to understand/execute concepts like giving up material to establish a fortress ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(chess) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(chess) ). The World Champion that played in the most sacrificial/attacking style, Mikhail Tal, was famed for giving up pieces to generate attacking momentum. Contemporary analyses of his play have found that some of these sacrifices were unsound, and some were actually the "best move" in a given position. I don't think it's feasible to expect human players to be able to calculate at the ply/depth that AlphaZero (or other chess engines) is able to. See this example from the latest World Championship (https://www.chess.com/news/view/world-chess-championship-game-6-caruana-misses-nearly-impossible-win https://www.chess.com/news/view/world-chess-championship-gam...). A "forced" win in 30 moves was available on the board, but it would've required that Caruana make moves that cut against the "principles" regarding piece placement ("positioning") that are drilled into chess players. I think a simple reality is that the search depths that AlphaZero (and to a lesser extent other chess engines) are dealing with are simply beyond human capability. A human player trying to execute the sacrifices that AlphaZero did (https://chess24.com/en/read/news/alphazero-really-is-that-good https://chess24.com/en/read/news/alphazero-really-is-that-go...) would be taking a stab in the dark. In most positions, they wouldn't really be able to calculate all the variations, or foresee how the endgame would play out.