hi chess.com members!

I would like your opinion on this: For a beginner, what is more important...positional play or tactics and why?

Thanks

You need tactics to win and positional play to be a competant player and recognize when to change tactics. While tactics will win you more games in the begining, an equilibrium of the two will make you more consistant.

For anyone below 2000,

TACTICS TACTICS TACTICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But strategic play helps as well.

Bobby Fischer said tactics flow from a superior position, so I suspect the two are intertwined. But I agree with brandonQDSH, you'll be able to capitalize on your opponents blunders with tactics study.

I agree with Cratercat... You use positional play to get in a better position than your opponent and then you use tactics to try to finish him off.

Well whatever, whichever. You can use positional play as the foundation/part of your tactics.

Good positional play is probaly beyond the grasp of beginers, until they get better they should stick to tactics

at the risk of sounding repetitve tactics tactics tactics. They are basic and are founded on patteren recognition. Positional chess is very subtle and varies based on the positions you encounter in your games but a knight fork is a knight fork either way 

I think beginners should play a lot of (maybe unrated) sicilian-najdorfs as black against strong players... and then use an engine to see what tactics they missed - or, if they are lucky, get a helpful strong-opponent who will point out what was missed *immediately* after the miss...

Or pay to get a good coach.. :)

As a beginner you should work on tactics regularly, and also work on getting all sorts of fundamentals together -- whether you want to call these things positional or not I don't know: developing your pieces in the opening, seizing space, learning basic endings, learning basic mating patterns, etc.  "Positional" chess covers a lot of ground... it includes things that are very basic and should be a part of beginner's thinking, and advanced things that are very difficult to apply. Positional concepts are often easier to comprehend than they are to apply effectively. There's a tactical point or two to deal with in almost every position. 

In short... yes, work on tactics... but there's more for a beginner to study productively than tactics only.

learn prophylaxis and blockade first :D

study tactics, and by playing get a feeling for positional play

tactics of cource

tactics

Cratercat> Bobby Fischer said tactics flow from a superior position

Right on. Tactics flow from a superior position, but at the beginner level they seem to flow even more often from blunders, so I say tactics to begin. By the way, I plan to stop by and play at your favorite locale in SF in the near future. ;)

whatever, just study lots of opening and play lots of game, read lots of book. Sure you will be a chess master one day ;-)

you are talking about yin and yang my friend, nothing more important than other! Positional ideas are known as Static elements of the position. Tactical ideas are known as the Dynamic elements of the position. What is best for a beginner is to learn the object of the game, and how it is achieved in a technical aspect. These unwavering chess truths, the checkmate setups and the mechanics behind them are the foundation that chess knowledge is built upon. All chess moves in a game must be made in context of the overall aim. Without truly understanding the end result, we are destined to be chess piece movers and NOT chess players.

tctics........

i heartity agree with chessroshi

opinionis

Tactics comes first. You can't drop valuable pieces too easily.