Can you really become a class A player by studying tactics?

If someone recommends playing 3 hours of speed chess as a way to improve...

I won't trust everything they say. 

Nakamura improved that way. 

But of course, he did more than just play blitz and bullet for 10 hours a day.

Playing tons of chess will indeed help to improve, but only if you combine that play with objective assessments of your play, and targetted instruction. There has to be a balance between play and study.

BUT, if a person is playing 3 hours of blitz every day, that person will improve much more quickly than someone who studies 3 hours of chess a week. 

You are right about the balance,

I think its best to study something, and try it out as fast and much as possible in blitz, correspondence and otb-longchesstournaments.

I very much doubt that 3 hours of daily blitz would produce more improvement than 3 hours of daily study!

But one should study AND play - and study definitely includes analysis of one's own efforts without any external help - before resorting to external help. 

Solskytz, read what I wrote. 

I have students who study three hours a week. They can't hope to improve unless they also play. I much prefer my students play 3 hours a day than study three hours a week. 

If you can find someone who has the time and energy to study 3 hours a day every day, that person should definitely mix in some play time as well. Study alone isn't enough. You gotta mix in practical experience too.

Here's my opinion.

Someone who focuses only on tactics will pick up some basic positional skills, maybe 1400 level, but most likely if they play an 1800 they're going to get flattened long before they can use their tactical skill.

So how far can you get by being 2000 in tactics, 1400 in positional play, and 1000 in everything else? Probably not further than 1400.

I have a friend who was FANTASTIC at tactics puzzles, but only ever got to around 1650 USCF. He said that he could solve almost any puzzle, but he couldn't recreate the conditions for such tactics in his own games. 

I noticed that in addition to his own observation, he often missed little tactical shots in his games. It seems he was so obsessed with "positional" considerations (which he considered to be his weakness) that he never really got into the habit of looking for tactics in practical settings. 

To drop all other kinds of training than tactics makes the race towards  class a a lot longer. 

I strongly recommend adding gameanalyzes to the traingprogram.

To become a you need to get a lot otb-rating, and when collecting those points, you happen to play otb-longchess game, which I belive is the best rehearsing possible if you analyze the games. First analyze with your opponent, then by yourself, and later with an engine. Even better it is to analyze with a master.

I know 2 guys that study nothing but tactics.  

One hovers around 1900-2000

One hovers around 1700-1800

Neither one ever goes any higher.  

I'm not even in those A/B class rating ranges, and have limited study time, but for sure, every single time I buckle down and study nothing but tactics, and a lot of them, and doing them properly (meaning playing out all the refutations against Stockfish so I don't miss the sidelines) - my ratings drops like a rock. 

Teaching your mind to think nothing but tactically is fraught with danger. Fortunately, even review of not so many full annotated games brings back a decent positional sense for my rating level. 

Was your friend Spielmann? 

Nice reference! Actually, I do always think of Alekhine when I think of what my friend told me.

Yes - you're right. I did miss that when reading earlier. 

So I'm fully in agreement with what you write. 

I have been going to a class in my club. We learnt some openings, and some endgame. I am satisfied with how I worked with an opening. First the class, then youtube, then more than ten onlinegames where I was allowed to play that opening, a lot of blitz and some Otb longchesstournamentgames. I go back to the youtubesvideoes now and then.

And guess what! It paid off! I did beat the world number four 2008-born woman with that spesific opening in a tournament game, with an advantage from that  opening.

The title and the first post is quoting me, and I didn't even know that this discussion thread existed.  

Back around 1985 I made it to class A by just being good at tactics and knowing very little else.  Since that time my play has become much more sophisticated and I have made it to Expert.  

Things might be different now than they were in 1985.  In general people seem to know more.  Still I occasionally run into people who are barely 1800 who don't seem to have much knowledge other than a couple of opening systems, but they are very tactically sharp and that is how they maintain their rating.

Best wishes,

John Coffey

From looking at what happens in one tournament after another, over 95% of the games played below 1800 level are consistently decided by tactical errors, often very simple tactical errors like undefended pieces on an open file, or loose pieces on a file that can be opened after a pawn exchange. More subtle positional play occurs around the 2000 level and beyond, but even the positional plans involve tactical vision.

I think you can become a class a chess player if you do enough challenging tactics, so I agree

Is there a reason to rule out that, in some of these games, positional play was a factor in helping one to avoid a difficult position?

to achieve much in chess you must be an all around player. Of course tactics are important but you must understand openings and end games and pawn structure and the basic principles of chess.