My rating is negative 1900. I was always bad at chess and never really gave it a chance tbh. I always wondered though where does the pattern matching stop and strategy starts or it's one and the same?

> where does the pattern matching stop and strategy starts or it's one and the same?

It's not one and the same, but strategy patterns are definitely a thing too.

There are:

- tactical patterns (e.g. "back rank checkmate", "pair of pieces that can be forked by a pawn");

- strategy patterns (e.g. "in a same-colour bishop endgame, put your pawns on the colour opposite to the bishops").

There's also calculation ability which also partly relies on patterns one has seen before.