That 2500 years of game play is reflected in chess theory and book openings, what you might consider as pre-training vs test time compute.
A human grandmaster might calculate 20-ply ahead, but only for a very limited number of lines, unlike a computer engine that may evaluate millions of positions for each move.
Pattern matching vs search (brute force) is a trade off in games like Chess and Go, and humans and MCTS-based engines are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Either you missed an /s or I am very interested to hear you unpack this a little bit. If you are serious, it just turns "brute force" into a kind of empty signifier anyway.
What do you call the attraction of bodies if not love? What is an insect if not a little human?
What do you call 2500 years of human game play if not brute force? Cultural evolution took 300K years, quite a lot of resources if you ask me.