To Be or Not To Be positional?
“He went out of his way to provoke the opponent to attack, and, reeking of contempt and crusader's zeal, devoted himself to consolidating some of the most hideously unconsolidated positions ever seen on a chessboard.”
-Robert Byrne on Wilhelm Steinitz
Recently many people have started questioning me related to chess since I started my blog. Some questions are really interesting and I will create a blog according to them. I created this blog,
https://www.chess.com/blog/siddharth026/legendary-game-of-20th-century
In This blog, my friend commented,
This is one of the leading assumptions people make that great games will have sacrifices or some fancy moves. To be true this is what social platforms have to show. People won't open the blog or video unless they see brilliancies or some sort of sacrifice in the thumbnail. For instance, we can take GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi championship matches or GM Wesley So and GM Hikaru Nakamura matches. These people are positional grinders. They will play openings in different orders and one novelty. Then the game would go in the positional fight until a one-sided favorable endgame.
Now talking about higher levels is not helpful for us since they know entire endgame theories and optimal drawing lines. Whereas we only know some openings and maybe one endgame. If I asked you do you know how to mate with two bishops? Can you tell me in short, what will be the process?
Well, the endgame is the topic for the next blog. This blog will contain differences and advantages of playing positional vs Gambits or Fancy chess.
Positional chess-
This is a long-term developing idea. This will help you for developing your piece coordination. Also favors your thinking ability and creative ideas.
Generally speaking, d4 creates a more positional setup than e4
Advantages-
1- people generally blunder more in the closed and compact position
2- If you are aware of your openings and pawn breaks you will be in great shape.
3- Long term growth.
4- Works in every rating range.
Disadvantage-
1- The position is compact and tough.
2- Highly frustrating sometimes.
3- Moves are not obvious.
4- One move creates a massive difference.
5- Takes time to think.
There are many positional openings like-
1- Queens gambit
2- Catalan
3- King's Indian Defense
4- Bogo-Indian
Gambits or agressive chess-
Gambit is the temporary sacrifice of material for either an overwhelming attack or rapid development. This involves risk factors and understanding the idea you're going behind. You should be sharp and at the point in such a system because one mistake and evaluation changes in the opponent's favor.
Advantages-
1- Takes opponent out of theory.
2- Creates a massive attack.
3- Creates faster development.
4- Shorter matches
5- Less frustrating.
Disadvantages-
1- Lines are sharp.
2- High attention is required.
3- One move turns game.
4- Doesnt work for all ratings.
5- If the opponent is prepared for your line you have to know the End games.
There are many Aggressive openings like-
1- King's Gambit.
2- Viennna system.
3- Danish gambit.
To know more you can read this blog from me,
https://www.chess.com/blog/siddharth026/top-5-gambits-you-should-know
Personally, I am more of a positional player. Moreover, I play vienna which is an aggressive line. But after 1500, No one goes for the vienna gambit they all go for the vienna game. So we might see some of my game and my thought regarding it,
Here is the match you should see to understand the difference-
Match 1-
Here you can see that till 7th move nothing interesting is happening
my opponent is trying to create a king-side attack and I am waiting for him to over-extend and mismatch the piece coordination.
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 c5 7. h4 h6 8. Be3-
here I was successful since you can see his two pieces are in front of my pawn and my goal should be to fork him.
This is how idea became valid. This will take time but you should have understanding of what your plan is.
In this position he is loosing a piece and he resigns.
Match 2-
This once again Caro kann, and there is no fanciness or a sacrifice but just a simple development, trading and playing the end game. Make sure you see the rook endgame here.
Match 3-
This game is an aggressive vienna gambit game. Look here I didn't miss a tempo in attacking and got to a great position. This is complete domination in the vienna system.
Match 4-
In this match, I played against the queen's gambit which was my main line for almost 6-7 months. But with the increase in my understanding now I played with this guy and what fascinated me here is that there was an unnecessary flashy move. My opponent sacked his knight. His idea was my king should be open. Yes, it is true, but you have to think about what will happen after that. He didn't see that my knight can fork his bishop and queen, and when my knight will take his queen, my two knights will be active on his uncastled king. He fell for that and under pressure, he hanged his rook.
I hope this will make you understand why making the flashy move is risky without understanding the position.
Match 5-
Now, this is a match with Niranjan Sahu. If you have read this blog you
would know who he is.
https://www.chess.com/blog/siddharth026/my-journey-from-beginner-to-chess-master
This guy knows my openings and common moves. So he doesn't go into my theory and plays slow moves.
In this match, you can see how I am trying to create a threat even by moving the same piece again and again. But eventually, I won since he blunders the most critical f7 pawn.
Match 6-
To show a fancy win, I cannot control my urge to post this match again. Watch the smothered mate at the end.
To conclude this blog, I would say that in all our games, it's important to look out for the necessity of the situation. Sometimes sacrificing the material is a way to win sometimes, playing for long is the best way. Anyways I hope you all grow rapidly and post me your best games.
