> The move isn't good because Kasparov said it's good; Kasparov said it's good because it's a good move. Which means that if you asked him, "Why?" he would give you some reasoning, which is the real Y for why X is true.
Yes, if you have access to Kasparov, you can ask his reasoning and that will help you make a decision. Some moves in chess are only good moves if you get the next five moves exactly right, so they aren't suited to beginners.
But in real life, we don't usually get access to experts. I can look up Kasporovs games but I can't ask him his reasoning. I can look at code that Dennis Ritchie writes and see how he did something, but I don't have access to him to question him on his reasoning. But he's a very good programmer with deep knowledge and a body of work to show for it, so chances are that if he's doing something some way, it's probably not a bad way. On the other hand, if I'm writing something in C--and I'm no expert in C--I aught to give it serious thought if I'm torn between two options and I'm not choosing the one that Dennis Ritchie went with. There's a good chance that I'm not seeing something that he did.
And yes, even the best people make mistakes. But unless you have good reasoning to the contrary, you probably are not going to do better than experts in most decisions.
> Some moves in chess are only good moves if you get the next five moves exactly right, so they aren't suited to beginners.
This is important. Similar issue exists in StarCraft: good builds for pro players aren't necessarily good builds for regular players. If you can't macro behind double pronged harass, don't do it. If you can't watch your ramp to block adepts shading in, don't sit a probe at the top of your ramp
Don't say "I do this because experts do this", instead study it to understand why they do. Otherwise you're going to end up cargo culting
Better to do suboptimal well & with understanding than try do optimal poorly & be confused when it doesn't pay off
Yes, if you have access to Kasparov, you can ask his reasoning and that will help you make a decision. Some moves in chess are only good moves if you get the next five moves exactly right, so they aren't suited to beginners.
But in real life, we don't usually get access to experts. I can look up Kasporovs games but I can't ask him his reasoning. I can look at code that Dennis Ritchie writes and see how he did something, but I don't have access to him to question him on his reasoning. But he's a very good programmer with deep knowledge and a body of work to show for it, so chances are that if he's doing something some way, it's probably not a bad way. On the other hand, if I'm writing something in C--and I'm no expert in C--I aught to give it serious thought if I'm torn between two options and I'm not choosing the one that Dennis Ritchie went with. There's a good chance that I'm not seeing something that he did.
And yes, even the best people make mistakes. But unless you have good reasoning to the contrary, you probably are not going to do better than experts in most decisions.