If you wish to become a strong player you cannot just be aggressive and crush your opponent. You have to find the best moves and best plans, if you have the chance to apply pressure and attack then do it, if you have to stop a threat and defend then this is also what you should do. If you have to defend then it's usually best to try to defend actively. OK so a pawn or piece is threatened... is it necessary to simply defend it directly by moving something to a passive square? Or can you threaten something yourself, something more dangerous to your opponent than his threat to win material? Can you sacrifice the threatened material in order to gain a lead in development or a dangerous attack? If you need to defend the threat can you do it whilst simultaneously developing pieces to good squares? If you exchange pieces to nullify a threat is this beneficial to you or your opponent? And only lastly if none of the above are good options you must hold your nose and play a piece to a passive defensive square. Even then, it is often better to accept that you made a mistake and are down material and seek to generate some threats of your own. If a piece is tied to a defensive role it cannot participate in the game fully.
Being to defensive in chess
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Jun 15, 2020
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#3
Sometimes you should defend, but you should attack when you have a chance. Best thing is attack and defend by the same move if possible. Let say a knight is eyeing a forking square but it is not protected. Instead of pushing a pawn to block its move play your queen next to it and attack another unprotected piece or a square from the range.
This might not be the best example but may give you an idea.
I have been playing chess for few months and noticed that, I always find out myself being to defensive in chess games, even 900-1200 rated players also play attacking against me, I win some games by countering their attack, but I want to be more aggressive and crush my opponent, but I don't know what to do. Is there any tricks?