The Strongest Chess Playing Style

Hi everyone. Hope you are all fine and, if not, that things improve soon.

If you are used to watching chess videos, or reading books/articles, you probably have heard that someone has a more aggressive style of chess, or another person plays in a more positional way.

It´s hard to categorize chess styles. But it´s not uncommon for us to see situations where you can sacrifice a piece to develop initiative, or, in the same position, you have the option to preserve the piece and maintain control of the situation, both possibilities being equally good. But, it´s funny to think that some players would feel uncomfortable in the first situation, and a fish in the water in the second one, and vice-versa.

Let´s take one question from the chess.com personality quiz as an example.

In the picture above, we see two good examples of how to proceed with the game. It´s a matter of taste which path you would choose here.

But, as hard as it is to enumerate and categorize chess playing styles, let´s try to do it anyway for illustration purposes, but not in an extensive way.

a) Positional: Players who rely more on positional elements, like pawn structure, to guide their thoughts towards the position.

b) Tactical: Someone who always looks for tactics during the game, even risking their position safety to create tactical possibilities and a double-edged game.

c) Defender: This type of player prefers to remain in control of his pieces, organizing his forces little by little and grabbing material when possible. He likes to wait for his opponent to come at him when he will be ready to deal with his threats.

d) Active Positional: Someone who uses the elements of the position, but likes to push his pieces forward and search for active squares for them. They usually don´t overextend themselves, though. 

e) Attacker: People who like to attack at all costs. He can be a tactical player as well, but not necessarily, as attacking doesn´t usually involve tactics.

d) Dynamic: They know the rules and their nuances pretty well (what is an isolated d-pawn, a hanging pawn, etc), and when to break them. They usually prioritize piece activity over other elements. 

f) Aggressive: This group of players is a kind of a mix of the tactical, attackers, and aggressive all together. They rely on piece activity at all costs, trying to create imbalances in the position, reaching irrational positions a lot of times where every wrong step can cost the game. They don´t hesitate to sacrifice material for that.  

e) Universal: Players who can play all styles. They are not as good at being an attacker as a pure attacker, for example, but they can do it decently.

So. which one is the strongest? Which of these styles should you focus to develop in your training?

The answer is given in a conversation between two martial artists: Huo Yuanjia, a wushu Chinese master, who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Anno Tanaka, a karate Japanese master. So, let´s see the dialogue:

Tanaka: I understand that there are many wushu fighting styles. Are you saying no style is greater than another?

Huo: That's what I'm saying.

Tanaka: If that's true, I want to ask you, if wushu does not differ in any way, why then do we fight each other?

Huo: I believe for all the styles of wushu, there is no single one that is superior. All of those who practice different styles of wushu would naturally have a different level of skill. Through competition, we can discover ourselves.

Tanaka: What you just said makes me have more respect for you. Enjoy your tea.

Huo: You first.

We can learn from this conversation, which was held in the movie Fearless (based on real facts), that there doesn´t exist a style that is superior to another, what varies are the training levels. This can be applied not only in martial arts but also in chess. 

Thinking further, it´s possible that a style can really be the most powerful one, but, we as human beings, aren´t able to know it at the moment, as we are incapable of mastering them all at their maximum to make the proper comparison.

Thank you for reading till here, hope you have enjoyed it.