Positional (calm) player vs tactical (sharp) one

When an inspiring positional and calm player (like me:-)) meets a tactically strong, attacking and sharp player it is the latter, as it seems to me, who can more easily force his style on the former. In other words, it's easier to make a tactical, open and sharp game against a positional player, rather than a calm and positional game against a player who wants an open and sharp game.

Am I wrong?

Anyway, what opening choices - both as white and black - can I use if I'd like to prevent people from making my games too open, sharp and tactical? (Which opening choices are most reliable if I'd like to play calmly and slowly?)

What I am after in the opening, more generally, is to:

- safely develop my pieces

- castle

- make a decent appeal for the centre (with my pawns preferably).

Only then (i.e. not earlier) I am ready to fight. Are there any openings that can assure me this aims? (I don't necessarily need an advantage as white. Also, I am more than happy if the openings needed involve boring my opponent to death :-))

Psychologically, your preferred brand of chess can reap many rewards when you succeed in gradually taking over your opponent's side of the Board, square by square.      Opponents can be so frustrated for lack of counterplay, that when you play them again, they are sapped of energy and offer little resistance.    

Topnotch Positional players include former World Champions Petrosian and Karpov.     They can lull you to sleep;  however beware !   lol

Keep in mind, that if your opponent is determined to disrupt your style of play he/she can play various gambits and unsound play  to open things up !

A good opening for White could be  pawn to b3 and fianchetoe that bishop.   It is a calm approach that has many different opening paths.   Even for change of place, such brilliant tacticians as Bobby Fischer and Bent Larsen have used it successfuly in outplaying their opponents.

For Black against pawn to e4, the Caro Kann and French Defense are worth looking at.   Against pawn to d4, could try the Queens Gambit Declined.

Keep developing your style.   As long as you are motivated to improve, you will continue to win games !

I really dont think tacticians can influence the game as much as you say. Just dont allow them to open up the game. Avoid trading as much as possible until youre comfortable with your position.

At our level everyone is just looking to sac the house anyway. Theyll get impatient and blunder if you just keep it closed.

If youre hell bent on an opening.. the french. Locks up the center. Really tough to open up into wild tactical games. Only variation I think that can do this is the Winawer(spelling?). But if you just play calm and not go into the mainline theyre looking for, then again youll see some impatientence and blunders

Exactly.

One point that "tactical" players often get wrong is thinking that you attack in order to gain the advantage. That way of thinking involves positioning the "cart" of attack directly in front of the "horse" of advantage.

In fact, it works the other way around. You gain the advantage (by maneuver) in order to exploit it by attack. Attacks launched from an equal or inferior position should and will fail... often catastrophically.

Caro Kan ofcourse but maybe french also worth a look? If black plays calm it seems very hard to rush em quickly. Atleast for me... I always try to be aggresive and best for me in French defense is exchanghe variation followed with c4 which often transposes to queens gambit declined. Not the sharpest positions arise. Usually fight in the center occurs instead of quick king attacks

I prefer the King's Indian Attack against both Caro-Kann and French.

I feel like it's the opposite.  If you want a sharp crazy game and they want a quiet boring game they'll usually get their way unless you're willing to take big risks.

If he doesn't like defending a big attack, then the french probably isn't for him... do something like a petrov or caro.

After 1.d4, queen's gambit.

if your white, its kind of hard to make 1.Nf3 tactical...

I'd say only compare your positional and calm style to another player's tactical and sharp style if you have similar ratings.

At our level of play, getting a bit too tactical can often blow up in our own faces unless we have studied a sharp opening-but in this case we are talking about one player being a lot more knowledgable than his/her opponent in a specific opening, which is quite a different thing.

As White, you might want to look into 1.d4 with the Catalan, however, I feel like the Caro-Kann would be a better choice as black, simply because 3.Nc3 French's can get really crazy.

I'd suggest the Dutch Defense as black and The English as white, but don't be quick to take my advice, since I'm slightly hesitant to call myself a positional player, even though I think I am one.

3. Nc3 french, Winawer isnt all that bad if you avoid mainline stuff right away(pin the knight, early c5). Nf6 I find is usually a decent reply to Nc3 if you want to keep up with a quiet game. Your going to bait that e pawn to advancing anyway. Its gets your knight kicked back to d7, but thats not a bad square since your attacking the pawn. The early Nc3 means the pawn cant go there, and recapture on d4, where it would defend e5. This way you just toss a ton of fuel on e5, break it down, take some shots at b2 as well, etc.

Kinda long winded, and there's probably a variation that refutes everything I just said, but thats how I go after the Winawer. They hate seeing e6, so piss them off further by not going into their posion pawn ideas.

I think 3...Nf6 is just called the classical, and although there are some wild variations, black can choose to avoid them and play very solidly.  White doesn't usually push e5 right away (as far as I know for the reasons you mentioned).  Common is 4.Bg5 and the solid way to play is 4...exd4 5.Nxd4 Be7 threatening to win a piece, so usually there is some simplification with captures on f6 and in the next few moves black can castle and play c5 easily.

As white I love the positions where black is playing 4...Be7 5.e5 Nd7 Bx and f4.  After c5 if I can play dxc and use d4 for a knight I feel like I'm playing for free.  Maybe not terribly scary for black, but I can build on the kingside at my leisure while I have no idea what black can do for active play with no pawn on d4 and worse minor pieces.  Probably black should keep his king in the center anticipating the kingside play and just hold on to an endgame or something.

I actually checked it out after I posted that. e5 is coming next more often than not, but what follows that is f4 almost everytime, so a pawn does end up defending e5(gm level anyway). Then theres usually an attempt by black to lock up the center with f5 eventually and go on with a queenside attack.

Bg5 is pretty nasty though, before the queen can get out. I like your reply

I have twice as many games in my database with 4.Bg5... but 4.e5 is being played by strong players and to be honest I didn't know it was such a popular / good move.  I guess the idea is to use the bishop to bolster d4 as well as possibly reasoning things like bishop pair and don't trade when you have more space and stuff like that.

As white I never minded getting rid of the "bad" bishop before putting all those pawns on dark squares.

I dont think I mind black after either reply. Good lines for the OP either way.

I'm afraid you're completely right. Hopefully, it won't happen again here: http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=94402814

(The game is still being played, so please do not comment on it)

No opening will solve your problems completely.  While it may be ok to "prefer" one type of position or another, if you ever intended to be any good at all, you must be able to deal with positional ideas and sharp tactics at the same time.

I've seen Najdorf Sicilians (especially the 6.Be2 lines) involve a lot of manouvering.  I've seen Slavs end up wild and crazy.  All of this happens more often than you want to imagine despite the reputation of each opening.

Long story short, you are one of three things.  Either you are a positional player, you are a tactical player, or you are a chess player.  The first two will always fail.  Until you are able to deal with both positional and tactical positions, you are a nothing, and certainly not a chess player!

I play 1...e5 as Black against 1.e4 rather than 1...c5 against 1.e4 because the ideas - yes, BOTH the POSITIONAL ideas AND the TACTICAL ideas - make more sense to me than those that result from most Sicilians.  It has nothing to do with being positional or tactical.

Base your openings on what positions make the most sense to you, not on whether you prefer a positional or tactical game.  There will always be positional motifs like a backwards pawn, space advantage, control over a key central square, et cetera, and there will always be forks, pins, skewers, and Greek Gifts to deal with, whether you like it or not!

Thanks for all the answers. Are there any particular players whose annotated games I should study, in order to develop the style I aim at?