Good positional understanding is one of the main criteria separating masters from club players. The problem is that it can be one of the toughest areas of the game to improve. Why is that? Because it is often left out of lessons for beginners, and there is next to nothing for beginners out there that covers positional chess!
https://www.ichess.net/blog/positional-chess-beginners-castellanos/
False. You may have heard the overused and probably not true phrase, "Chess is 99% tactics," but now I know what chess truly is. Chess is 99% blunders.
So blunders are more important. Shoot, i wasted my life.
https://thechessworld.com/articles/training-techniques/5-ways-improve-positional-play/
Good positional understanding is one of the main criteria separating masters from club players. The problem is that it can be one of the toughest areas of the game to improve. Why is that? Because it is often left out of lessons for beginners, and there is next to nothing for beginners out there that covers positional chess!
The Backward Pawn – Positional Chess for Beginnershttps://www.ichess.net/blog/positional-chess-beginners-castellanos/
yes unless you have a coach, which can be expensive for the casual player, learning positional play is very difficult. one book i had years ago which was pretty good at this was weapons of chess by pandolfini
Positional chess is all about accumulating many small and very small advantages and using them when the time is right.
Positional play is the art of improving one's own position, while degrading the position of the opponent.
Here a GM ( Sébastien Mazé ) show in many games how to play without any calculations! Only with Positional play! And of course he win them all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzrqYqwkUZM&t=103s
He doesn't win because of "positional play without calculating" but because the players are 800+ elo below him.
I like your analogy, makes simple sense of the topic.
Here a GM ( Sébastien Mazé ) show in many games how to play without any calculations! Only with Positional play! And of course he win them all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzrqYqwkUZM&t=103s
He doesn't win because of "positional play without calculating" but because the players are 800+ elo below him.
100% of all his move are positional and he win against 5 players,one is 1700 and one is 1844 and one 1875 and one 1723 and one 2300 that is the point and a 1800 here is in the top 5% of all the players here so it's relevant! to learn how to play this way!
Actually, the military recognizes an intermediate level, between strategy and tactics, called "the operational level".
I was at one time a Mentor at the Canadian Army's Combined Arms Tactics School.
How To Play Positional Chess
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-positional-chess
I find some players get confused by the difference between tactical and positional chess, especially because both skills are needed to play a strong game.