Latvian is not sound opening nor solid. A solid opening for black is caro-kann and french. Tactical players must play gambits.
Why must they play gambits? Tactical players can perfectly well play the French or even Caro-Kann - it shouldn't make a big difference.
Tactics come into play when your pieces are active. Positional chess is about getting your pieces to squares where they are active. You don't need to sacrifice a pawn to do that
The OP asked for a 'solid' opening for 'tactical players'. French and Caro-Kann are solid openings that can be played by tactical players
I think un-refuted tactical gambits is a better way to put it.
Evans or King's for White, Latvian & Budapest for Black.
UNREFUTED? LOL the latvian gambit is SUPER-REFUTED and the others are refuted too
Centre game is fun. The plan is to castle long, use your f pawn to control the centre, while your h and g pawns rip open the black kingside. The downside is that black can equalize fairly easily.
There is no such thing as a Tactical Player.
We are chess players. A chess player needs to understand both positional and tactical aspects of the game.
All this "I'm a Tactical Player" or "I'm a Positional Player" bullsh*t is just that, utter bullsh*t. That's like a baseball player saying "I'm a hitter". No, you hit and you field! If you can't field a baseball, it doesn't matter that you can hit 20 dingers a year, you basically suck! If you can field shortstop like the best of them, but you can't swing a piece of wood at a moving spherical object, you also suck!
Chess is the same say. You understand tactics and calculation, AND you also understand the concept of weak pawns, weak squares, domination, control of individual squares and color complexes, etc, or else you don't understand chess and should take up Tic Tac Toe instead!
We can classify players into tactical and positional according to their chess style but both groups must play tactically and positionally as demanded by the position. For example, Tal is regarded as a tactical and Botvinnik as a positional player.
All of that baloney is just to appease the lowly 1200 player. They want to compare the players. Truth is, Tal understood positional aspects of the game and Botvinnik knew all the tactical patterns and did not have to recalculate every time a tactical opportunity arrived.
Label players all you want, but the truth is the fact that all of these 2700+ GMs understand all aspects of the game like the back of their hand.
I have seen so many naive 1800 players think that you can know one and not the other and they either sit back, miss numerous winning opportunities and instead draw or lose because they want a positional game that avoids conflict, or they are players with ADHD that try to force tactics to work when there is nothing there and all they do is weaken their position and get killed because have don't even have a lick of knowledge in middle game strategy.
For white, king's gambit.
For black, Sicilians usually against e4. Against d4, King's Indian is very tactical, very sharp.
I also believe so. The more tactical openings are full of traps and it's good for new and more casual players to get familiar with the possible mistakes. But when the opponents begin getting stronger they dont fall for them anymore and then its necessary to learn more solid openings that can help you with positional play.
Open Games do not allow you to just assume tactical traps and abort positional understanding. The reason they say to learn open games first is that open games allow for more free piece play and you learn the full potential of the pieces rather than going through the complexities of when a bad bishop us playing an important defensive role versus just being totally useless.
For example, a positional idea that almost no sub-1800 player seems to even have a remote clue about. Why do some GMs play 2.Bc4 after 1.e4 e5 but not after 1.e4 c5? Lower players are clueless and claim 2.Bc4 is great against everything, even the French and Caro-Kann, which is total B'S.
The answer comes from the fact that 1...e5 weakens the a2-g8 diagonal for Black, along with the h4-d8 diagonal because the pawn can never retreat to e6. 1...c5, on the other hand, does not weaken that diagonal, and the move itself attacks nothing, unlike if there were say, a knight on d5. 1...c5 weakens the a4-e8 and h1-a8 diagonal for Black. After 1.e4 c5 2.Bc4?!, Black can immediately or at any time in the near future play ...e6 and the Bishop on c4 is useless there!
for Black i like the Dragon
and white i like Fried Liver
There is no such thing as a Tactical Player.
We are chess players. A chess player needs to understand both positional and tactical aspects of the game.
All this "I'm a Tactical Player" or "I'm a Positional Player" bullsh*t is just that, utter bullsh*t. That's like a baseball player saying "I'm a hitter". No, you hit and you field! If you can't field a baseball, it doesn't matter that you can hit 20 dingers a year, you basically suck! If you can field shortstop like the best of them, but you can't swing a piece of wood at a moving spherical object, you also suck!
Chess is the same say. You understand tactics and calculation, AND you also understand the concept of weak pawns, weak squares, domination, control of individual squares and color complexes, etc, or else you don't understand chess and should take up Tic Tac Toe instead!
facts
That is not completely true and I disagree. Although Tal was good at positional chess he is mostly known for his superb tactics and sacrifices, in fact, the fame of Tal as a chess genius is because of his tactical skill.
Although Botvinnik was good at tactics he is mostly known for his positional chess specially in closed positions.
Petrosian is master of defence and Pillsbury master of attack.
When Karpov and Kasparov attended Botvinnik school, Botvinnik compared Kasparov to Alekhine and Karpov to Capablanca because of their style of play. Surely and 100% Kasparov’s chess is more aggressive than Karpov, Karpov himself admitted he was a positional player.
This is the right way to learn the game: to recognise your strengths and talents and improve them.
uh I beg to differ- all those players you mentioned up there are both strong positionally and tactically. Otherwise, why would they be considered super GMs? Its just whether their style of play is more positional or more tactical. There is no such thing as someone being JUST tactical or just positional. Thats utter rubbish. You are not a tactical player- your style is just more aggressive and you prefer complicated positions.
for Black i like the Dragon
and white i like Fried Liver
if im not wrong, the dragon used to be played often but it has caused chess theorists to study and find the moves for this so in my opinion, once you get stronger you cant rely too much on the dragon.
As for the fried liver, there is a way to refute it and altho you are a pawn up, you are behind in development
Colle System for white (in my opinion this opening is quite solid and there are chances of you getting a strong attack on the kingside) and Caro Kann for black (great endgame chances)