Nicator65 wrote:
Wow! That's an amazing game
Should you always have a plan?
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Mar 15, 2020
0
#43
I think since "positional" and "strategic" are often used interchangeably it comes off as something of a mistranslation at first. At least for me, at first I thought he was contradicting himself in certain places.
But then you remember Kramnik speaks English and is pretty good at chess, so he probably means what he says 
(the topic is world champs, but notice how he uses the words strategic and positional. And anyway, an interesting interview worth reading IMO)
https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/vladimir-kramnik-from-steinitz-to-kasparov
Mar 15, 2020
0
#44
For example:
"Petrosian is a very deep and hard to understand player. I think that he's presented wrongly . . . He was a brilliant tactician and a brilliant strategist. But his positional playing wasn't on par with, say, Smyslov. However, it's thought for some reason that Petrosian is a master of positional game . . ."
Mar 15, 2020
0
#45
Interviewer:
"To add some "humanity": what were Karpov's weaknesses, relatively speaking?"
Kramnik:
I think that he didn't pay much attention to strategy. As I said, he could easily forget what happened at the board before, and perhaps he lacked a deep strategical thread in his games. Karpov is a player who likes to do many short, 2-3 move long operations. Here we do a knight's tour, here we capture some space, here we weaken a pawn... I think he wasn't a natural strategist. "
Mar 15, 2020
0
#46
Optimissed wrote:
OK, firstly, would you say that tactics are always forcing? I know this is a question I could have answered 20 years ago but what does "forcing" mean? Doesn't it imply a sort of over-view based on the best possible chess analysis which isn't available at the time of the game?
Yeah, I don't know.
In a real game it tends to all mix together. Tactics, strategy, the clock, your personal level of energy. It's what makes chess so much fun 
Maybe "pure" tactics only exist as example positions in books.
So what are tactics by themselves? I'm not sure. Off the top of my head I'd say they're forcing sequences that you can calculate to a definite conclusion. Their gains are concrete and immediate.
Now to throw in more convoluted chess terms... a combination is like a tactic with all the other stuff mixed in. A combination can have all sorts of elements, partly forcing, partly positional, partly strategic. A combination's gains may be less concrete and impossible to calculate fully to the end.
Mar 15, 2020
0
#47
And I'd say forcing means you have few options.
For example if I capture your rook you basically only have 2 options: recapture, or create an equivalent threat somewhere else.
I can be sure you are "forced" to do this, because I assume I can win if I'm ahead a rook and my opponent has no compensation.
My plan is to offer comprehensive investigation of Paul Morphy play for only 99 cents, lol: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Move-Morphy-Lyudmil-Tsvetkov-ebook/dp/B085WX4Q4J/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=morphy&qid=1584382077&s=digital-text&sr=1-4
take your time
It's good to have a general plan.. it's called chess strategy. Expect the strategy to change as the game changes. Good strategy is not so much a decked out plan, as much as it's positioning pieces along the way that can maximize your chances to win. That's long term strategy. For example playing the C file and a1-h1 diagonal can be a strategy, and you play your opening accordingly.
But there is also strategy on a smaller scale, where you adjust you overall strategy to the current position of the board. Smaller scale strategy sorta leads you to more immediate tactics. Of course, immediate tactics can pop up at anytime, depending on what your opponent moves.
But short term strategy can sorta lead you a wealth of different possible tactics if you opponent doesn't play accurately. Short term strategy can also just lead to a better overall position, and anything in between. No doubt your opponent is also doing the same thing, so it's not a done deal that you'll win. 😉
Should one always have a plan? An actual reason for every move (other than eg "protect this piece" or other obvious urgent moves)?
It's not that you should always have a plan in the form of a number of moves that you happened to like more than others, as that's in the neighborhood of Woodpushing 101.
What I mean with a "plan" is, perhaps, what could be considered some kind of strategic improvement of your position (or the worsening of your opponent's position) that's not merely some kind of immediate obvious gain (like material gain) or an urgent move (eg. defending a piece that's in danger of being captured with no or too little compensation). In other words, how to improve your position in the long run (ie. more than just a move or two) in a situation where there isn't anything absolutely urgent going on.
Examples of such "plans" could include things like:
Perhaps another way of putting it is that every time you make a move, there should be a reason for that move. You should be able to explain why you made that move. A reason better than just "I couldn't think of anything else", or "it felt good".
I think it was Kramnik who first introduced me to the idea of:
Tactics - short term forcing moves
Positional play - short term non-forcing moves (his example was Karpov)
Strategic play - long term plan or big idea (his example was Petrosian)
What you're describing in the quoted post above is positional play, not planning. For example you put your rook on the open file. Why? Because it's more active. That's a positional judgement. It's a short term logical move that isn't necessarily justified via calculation.
(At worst what you're describing is beginner tips that are stop gap solutions and have nothing to do with chess played at a higher level)
IMO @Nicator65 's posts are consistently excellent. Pay attention to this:
It goes like this: No activity -> activity -> threats -> initiative -> unstoppable initiative -> checkmate.
Going from one stage to the next one usually involves more than one solitaire move, and those moves happen to be called "a plan".
He's giving you the general flow of a game, from one stage to the next. The series of elements that work together to progress you through these stages (from no activity to checkmate) can be thought of as a plan. In other words plans can change dynamically as you and your opponent make decisions.
So like I was saying, a plan is something organic. It arises naturally when you do proper analysis (and if you have enough knowledge and experience). Thinking to yourself during a game "I'm going to make a plan now" is putting the horse before the cart so to speak.
So anyway, what you're describing above is something like beginner tips or positional ideas, not a plan.
(and now that I look, I see this is posted in the beginner section, so maybe that's appropriate, in any case I don't mean it as an insult)