Different vocabulary, similar concepts

Yehuda returned to chess after many years of not playing. Since in the interim he had been focused on other types of abstract strategy games (he calls them "Euro-games"), he decided to apply principles from those games to chess.

Now, when you come back to chess after playing hundreds of Euro-games, you approach the game quite differently. Instead of seeing the game of chess as "chess", which has its own rules, patterns, and history, you approach the game like you approach any other tactical, area-control game.

Actually, not area-control. I approached the game as a resource game. Each turn I had one action resource, and I had sixteen meeples to play with, each with its own movement actions. The game ends when someone is about to lose their king meeple.

So my approach to the game was from an action point point-of-view. I figured that whenever I had more meeples, and more available actions from which to choose, then I was probably winning. And that meant that I could exchange pieces so long as I kept the upper-hand. Furthermore, when my opponent had less actions available, they were more likely to make bad ones.

Fascinating, really. When you cut through the new vocabulary, what he's taking about is material superiority and Temposhlucker's favorite piece activity. No mention of tactics though I suppose that might be implicit in achieving a material advantage.