Aggresive or Deffensive?

Well, style is just that, preferences, Kasparov prefered an attacking game, but he played positional games none the less.

Yes, Tricklev, indeed. Give two players a series of positions with roughly equal moves available, some will choose prophylaxy, some will choose the more aggressive path, etc. That's their preference in the position --> style.

I like to be aggressive.

I believe that style is what separates the master from a regular player. FM-level refers to knowing the basic principles of chess, IM-level stands for having one's own style, GMs have advanced knowledge of chess, super GMs can invent new principles and ideas...

In my opinion, as long as you know what you're doing, and make good moves, then defensive or offensive will do!

lol, Kasparov is exceptional at everything!

"I believe that style is what separates the master from a regular player. FM-level refers to knowing the basic principles of chess, IM-level stands for having one's own style, GMs have advanced knowledge of chess, super GMs can invent new principles and ideas..."

I would agree that an FM is more likely to play the board than to come up with a new idea, but we all have preferences on what types of moves we are more likely to play, and that goes for GM's down to, well even beginners. I think what Syntax-error was trying to say was that us mortals need to rely on general rules of chess and more basic plans than what GM's come up with. But that absolutely does not mean that we don't have a preference for a certain way to play a position. As marvellosity said, in a position with multiple plans (like say the QGD exchange), one person might prefer to safely create a weakness with the minority attack while another had the attention of castling queenside and pawn storming the kingside all along.

Nah...  That's all nonsense.  Players that have ratings under 500 can still have a style.  Maybe not a good one but still a style.  I have a style and I'm barely 1200.

I do both, by taking control over critical squares.

-Traps is stupid if you get a bad position . No point in preventing traps.

Go for control over the critical squares, to begin with it's the center, chose one colour, (black/white) place your pawns suited with your choice. Trade pices suited with your choice. Tactics comes when you have the supiriour position.

(You can only get that if your opponent does weak moves)

If your style can't be distinguished from that of hundreds of your rating peers then is it a "style" in the meaningful sense of the word?

That's why I believe "real" style is reserved for titled players for the most part, maybe without exception.

I think some people have confused the feelings they have when they play for "style". Everyone has feelings. That's fine. Style comes with skill, and you have to earn that.

Eh, I have a looser definiton of it. I mean if only an international player has to have a style, then by your logic there are thousands of styles. You generally choose between a general style, like attacking or defending, but sure all of our styles are slightly different. One "attacking" player might be more flexible about attacking than another "attacking" player, but still they both like to attack. If you really want to be picky and change the word to "preferences", then I hope there are no arguments that every player has a different preference for different kinds of moves and positions, but indeed a good player will do whatever the board calls for, but say in the opening phase they should also try to get their favored position if possible.

I follow the advice of Sun Tzu--first, I try to make my position invincible (or as close to it as possible).  Then comes the sniping and trapping.

It looks as though some of us have the word "style" defined in our brains as a simple word as others use it in a stronger sense.  I see it in the stronger sense.

Although similar, "style" to me has a much deeper meaning than "preferences".  As a weaker player you can prefer certain moves in certain positions and still be debating over what you really want to do or accomplish at that time.  When you have a specific style tailored to who you are based on years of education and experience, there really is no debate.  Although as a strong player you can see many different moves, you already know what you want and the only moves you are considering are the ones that suit you.

It seems as though BlitzStrike understands exactly what I and Syntax-error mean.

I'm sure we all have our favorite GMs or so.  Mine, right now, being Paul Morphy.  Normally, we don't favor them just because they win games, we favor them because of how they win games.  And how they win games is normally based on playing style rather than just a preference.

"there really is no debate" I don't think means a stronger meaning style, just a stronger player carrying out a plan. A style is made up of preferences. I don't know, I know what I want to accomplish once I decide on a plan, but of course I won't carry it out nearly as accurately as a master level player and will miss tactical opportunities whether that's my preference or not. But indeed for me there would be "no question" of what I want to do after thinking about the position, just how to accomplish it! Perhaps class d and below are like what you mention as their understanding of chess has huge holes.

I just don't think that's what a "style" is and I never remembered that you had to be extremely proficient with one for any game. Since when is it a compliment to have a style? Well I guess some people think that's a big one as if you have a style you must be very good. To have an attacking style in my eyes doesn't mean you're necessarily good at it, but only compared to all the other parts of your game and more importantly what you prefer or like to do. The people who do it very well have a style like us, but merely execute it better.

But it's pretty pointless talking about this. This thread has now become a debate on what style really means lol. Who cares, fine, we'll call it a preference. Because apparently we can't have a style, we'll just talk about what we prefer to do.

 Yeah, everyone knows you need more than 2500 to have style.

Let's try to explain this another way.

Style - How you play based on who you are.

Preference - How you play based on how you feel.

I hope those definitions make some sort of sense.  I'll elaborate a little.

Style doesn't change so easily.  You'd have to have a major shift in being. 

Preferences can easily change based on how you feel at any given time.  Your feelings change based on such things as who you are playing, what time it is, or even how many games you've already played.

I guess another way of puting it...

Style is more like your personality.  And a definitive personality takes resources such as time, education, and experience to develop.

Preferences are more like just simple decisions based on limited resources or a lack of a well developed style/(chess)personality.

It just makes sense to me.

You seem to be making definitions up as you go along. Where's this one come from?

[quote]You seem to be making definitions up as you go along. Where's this one come from?[/quote]

I think maybe what he is trying to say is that when someone develops their own style, less brainwork is needed to play with regards to which direction they want to take the game.

No matter where the game actually ends up based on your opponent, your style helps keep you grounded and focused on moves that help keep you in control.

Someone without a style will easily be swayed in their gameplay jumping back and forth from aggressive to defensive to tactical to positional to questionable to whatever.  They begin to scatter accross the board because they tried to play the position without having a solid foundation to guide those moves.

Right now, I only dream of being able to decide just what move to make rather than what kind of move to make.

Why do preferences have to be based on a lack of understanding? In fact they form as you understand more about chess. I honestly don't think chess has much to do with your personality, except maybe for the fighting spirit part, but even that goes for both attacking and tenacious defense. But I mean though I'm not an attacking player I'll attack when there is an opportunity, but obviously that doesn't mean I have to be an aggressive person by nature at all. the only reason that I shift from tactical to positional or whatever during a board is because the position often transforms during a game, with one predominating the other usually. Just because I am not as good as masters and above doesn't mean my moves don't have more of a positional flavor to them.

What the heck?