Positional Players? - Chess Forums

PositionalPatzer

Apr 28, 2008

0

#1

Hello I'm new to chess.com, and I'm excited to get started. I had a question first though.

I love chess. Obviously right. However the thing i love about chess is positional play (see my username). Tactics and stuff are fine, but Positional play is what i love. Does anybody know some really good Masters known for their positional play? That i can study their games. The thing is, that even though i love an awesome position, i suck at it.

-P

Thompson

Apr 28, 2008

0

#2

Capablanca is the name that pops into mind first.

Steinz and probably all the world champions that followed, except Tal. He is more known for his tactics, but no doubt is also a fine positional player too.

Not sure about which players of todays era are particularly known as a positional player. Most are strong in all departments.

mxdplay4

Apr 28, 2008

0

#3

Reshevsky. Rubinstein. But all the great positional players were great tacticians too. Positional play is still based around tactics.

crikey

Apr 28, 2008

0

#4

You could try reading Nimzowich's 'My System', which is a classic treatise on positional chess. He talks about the handling of isolated pawns, outposts and open files etc etc. It's very polemical and of its time, but the chess is fun, and he has a strong 'positional' theme throughout

Smartattack

Apr 28, 2008

0

#5

Karpov!Karpov is all about play of the position

FerrusKG

Apr 28, 2008

0

#6

May be try Petrosyan... He was known for positional sacrifices.

Or Botvinnik.

All good GMs are good positional players anyways, choose one!

FM theturtlemoves

Apr 28, 2008

0

#7

definitely Karpov and Petrosian

ericmittens

Apr 28, 2008

0

#8

Smyslov, Petrosian, Karpov, Kramnik...just to name a few of the more famous ones.

NM TheOldReb

Apr 28, 2008

0

#9

All of the greats play all phases of chess extremely well, but usually each of them plays one area even better than the others. Its known that Petrosian was very powerful when attacking and not worse than Tal in calculating sharp variations when the position forced him too, but he chose a quieter positional/strangling approach most often as that was his "style".