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I'm trying to translate an episode of a TV series and one of the characters says the following, while moving pieces on a chessboard:

He taught us twos and ones and ones and twos when it comes to planning your battle and executing it perfectly with the disciplines of the war.

The above is from the transcript but I also hear the following, I don't know which one is correct:

It's all just twos and ones and ones and twos when it comes to planning your battle and executing it perfectly with the disciplines of the war.

What would be the meaning of "twos and ones and ones and twos"?

My idea was first to think it meant "he taught us everything" but it does not really seem fitting. So I thought it could be about placement of people, in groups or alone, to use in the battle plan. Then, the second possibility with "it's all just" feels also more fitting with "managing the use of people".

I can't find much about this expression so I hope somebody will be able to shed some light.

Here is a link to the transcript of the episode (I couldn't find a video online): https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=557&t=50984

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    The exact sequence twos and ones and ones and twos doesn't even occur once in all the millions of books indexed in Google Books. And it only gets 3 hits on the entire Internet (Google obviously hasn't yet indexed this new ELU question itself! :) The collocation obviously has no established meaning, so it's basically a matter of opinion (plus knowledge of the exact context, which I don't have).
    – FumbleFingers
    Jul 19, 2022 at 14:54
  • Yes, I found almost nothing about it and was worried it might be something made up for the character of the show ... I think "the ABCs" represents well my first idea and the "small numver or groups" my second idea. I guess I'll have to choose one and go with it.
    – Christophe Ferreira
    Jul 19, 2022 at 15:53
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    It might be a description of how the knight moves. / You should provide a link and the name of the series and episode number.
    – aparente001
    Jul 20, 2022 at 5:06
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    He has a Welsh accent which may be why you hear something different to the transcript (which is correct). In terms of the actual sentence; as he is playing Chess, I would equate it to the movement of pawns which can move either one or two spaces from their starting positions, which to me would imply considering the order of movements of troops. I think it is supposed to be an idiosyncratic sentence to go with what I can see is an odd character, and likely has no real basis.
    – Tragamor
    Jul 20, 2022 at 13:55
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    I wonder if it actually refers to knights, which move 2 spaces in one direction and 1 space in the other.
    – Barmar
    Jul 25, 2022 at 21:09

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