Do Tactics just Happen? Or...How do I make tactics happen?

I've been boning up on tactical themes and recognition, but how do I make some of these positions happen? 

Are they the result of proper positioning on the board? Grabbing the center, minimizing doubled pawns, etc.?

Or do they require careful planning to make happen deliberately? Is that what the art of combinations is?

OR is the first step just recognizing when opportunities occur? 

The latter happened to me in a game recently. I was able to implement a discovered attack by seeing it, but I didn't plan it in advance. I was able to plan some moves once I did see it, but again...no advance planning. 

#1
"how do I make some of these positions happen?" ++ It is your opponent who is careless and makes a mistake. It is your job to spot the tactic and exploit it. 

"Grabbing the center" ++ Yes, central pieces have more possibilities.

"minimizing doubled pawns" ++ No, on the contrary: a doubled pawn gives you an open file which opens tactical possibilities for your rooks.

"Or do they require careful planning to make happen deliberately?"
++ No you cannot plan the mistake of your opponent.

"Is that what the art of combinations is?" ++ No, it is seizing the opportunities you get.

"recognizing when opportunities occur" ++ Yes.

"no advance planning" ++ You cannot plan tactics.

Thanks very much for the response!

I have a clearer idea of tactics, and will learn how to take advantage of my opponents' mistakes.

I know how Garry Kasparov defines strategy vs tactics...but is there a definition for combinations that tie into either of these terms? Or is it something else entirely?

As tygxc explained : important is spotting your opponents mistakes.

But many tactics require a setup .  As someone said : they could complete Alekhine's combinations if they had achieved Alekhine's positions.

Consider knight forks. If your knight attacks one important piece, could another piece be lured/attracted to second target square ? To get a king or queen to the target you may have to sacrifice a piece. Many puzzles are based on this "attraction to a target square"

For line pieces : set up x-ray attacks on important targets through your or opponents pieces. Remember the old rhyme :  "Line up your rooks on the opponent's queen, no matter how many pieces intervene."

I don't quite agree with tygxc.

Tactics flow from a superior position.

It is axiomatic that you will NOT find a winning move unless you are in a winning position. After all... if the position contains a winning move, then you must already be in a winning position, yes?

So tactics can be prepared by gaining a winning position... which is normally done EITHER by superior maneuver, OR by exploiting an opponent's tactical error.

Maneuver to gain the advantage, then cash it in with tactics.

You've probably heard things like rooks belong on open files, knights like outposts, and bishops like long open diagonals. Also in general pieces like to be centralized. Pieces like to be in contact with weak enemy pawns, or squares around the enemy king.

The trick to making tactics happen is you find moves that simultaneously do one of those things while also making a threat. The beginner mistake is to put pieces on bad squares for the sake of making threats. That only wins material when the opponent doesn't see the threat.

"What if none of my active moves make threats / tactics?" Then it's a calm position. Be satisfied with playing calmly for now. If you stay active then things will heat up later.

#5
"Tactics flow from a superior position"
++ Yes, but the superior position flows from a mistake by the opponent.
Let us look at an example
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1261813

White won with tactics. These flew from a superior position. The superior position flew from a mistake 13...hxg5?.

Even more. Take the white pieces and force a strong engine to play 1 e4 f5?
Now white has a superior position, a won position: a pawn ahead, position of the black king weakened. However, if you play this against a strong engine, then the engine will win this with black by means of some middle game tactics. Being human you will make a couple of mistakes at some point and the engine will spot these and seize the opportunity to win.

And mistakes flow from putting your opponent under pressure... with active pieces.

#8

"mistakes flow from putting your opponent under pressure... with active pieces"
++ No, not always. You can also induce a mistake by playing passive defence and letting the opponent put pressure on you with active pieces so he at some point overextends and makes a mistake that allows to counterattack.
Here is an example. White has the pressure, white has the active pieces, white has the attack. However white overextends and black seizes the opportunity to counterattack.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1042835 

I totally agree. (not that anyone needs my confirmation)

Just like a tiger, you come close, then you wait, wait, and wait [meanwhile improving your position if possible].

4. "Chess is a matter of delicate judgement, knowing when to punch and how to duck."

https://www.chess.com/article/view/bobby-fischers-best-chess-quotes

True. Giving your opponent many ways to win in hopes that they get confused can work... I wouldn't recommend it as a player's main strategy... but I suppose some players do enjoy counter punching.

When I was newer to chess I played the fort knox French variation. I undeservedly won a few games in just that way, my opponent pressed the attack too hard. Other times I defended all game and lost anyway heh.

So the base, is make the opponent make a mistake.

I find Nimzovich's idea of 'Restraining the opponent' to be very effective at that. (mostly at the beginning, by playing h3 a3 - blocking horses and bishops, and giving extra squares for my own king and horses) - now that the opponent doesn't have obvious moves, he cracks! [after h3, a3, or h6 a6, wait for his mistakes], people generally don't play chess in order to think and to innovate, they play in order to win comfortably.

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“Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don’t have this when you play a computer. I can’t confuse it.” — Judit Polgar

"A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused." ---  Rudolf Spielmann

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Confusing your opponent is important.

#12
You can play a3 and h3 but it is risky as it violates opening principles. You lose 2 tempi and you create weaknesses. Here is an example
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1026344 

Pin it to win it. Honestly setting up a discovered attack is the easiest tactic to pass. Uncastled king lined up with your rook and knight discovering check yea. Looring the enemy queen in front of uncastled king and pinning it with the rook. As the boys have said the potential for knight forks, knight has to be in the center to do them forks. Knight discovering bishops attack onto a rook while taking a pawn etc. Enemy lining up peaces for a pawn fork, which is not supported yet, support it, if he misses it, he's going down, if he doesn't miss, he's moving on your terms so no loss there.

So yea, you have to play the game, if there happens to be a chance for tactic, but you need a move or two to set it up, yea go for it. If not play on. If enemy blunders the tactic great. You should be aware of potential tactical blunders of oponent as a detail in big picture of your peace and strategy play and use it as a weapon to limit some of his moves. Sooner or later using it as pressure against weak oponents and they blunder it all the time anyway.

But, you have to get better at solving tactics too dude. You're like 1000 puzzle rating behind me, while only few points in rating...

At your rating, you don't really have to make it happen.  Develop with good opening principals, and every move, take a breath and look for threats, captures, and checks.  If there are none, move a piece to take center control without hanging it. 

That is the secret to get up to about 1200.  Once that happens, you will develop the board awareness to start making plans.  Until that happens, it's better to just focus on making good moves and take advantage of your opponent making bad ones. 

Having looked at a couple of your games, I'd seriously suggest playing much slower time controls. Think daily! In your games now, there are tactics you miss, and tactics your opponents are missing that are very obvious. Forks, forced moves caused by check, and meanwhile you're taking turns trading off pawns to no end. I'd look into principles of over-protection and good vs bad trades, as a way of obtaining stronger positions where tactical opportunities emerge (to paraphrase Mr. Fischer.) And as people have pointed out... solve a lot of puzzles. There's a lot of pattern recognition in spotting opportunities, and making opponents move their piece where you can create a fork or x-ray etc. 

I haven't been playing online for a while, because I was getting frustrated with the experience. Playing games with short time controls while a little tipsy was probably the catalyst. 

But I've really been just enjoying reading through tactics book(s), and annotated game books for noobs. I've also been doing more puzzles on chess.com and lichess. 

I've only played a few OTB games recently, but I feel my thought process is very different than before, so I may try peppering some online games in, soon. 

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The discussion about the source of tactical moves/advantages was interesting to me, but my base knowledge is still lacking. 

Can anyone provide more concrete definitions and examples of the following?

Superior Position (is there any meaning to this term beyond just having your pieces in a better position? e.g., control of center, knights not on edges, rooks on open files, etc.?)

Tactical Errors (is this the opposite of some of the examples I just gave? e.g., relinquishing center, knights on edges, trapped bishops, etc.?)

I have more questions, but I have to run for now! Thanks so much for the spirited discussion, and I'm going to be going back to reread everything several times.

Quick response to this. I've been trying to do that in my past 5 OTB games or so! In one game, I was happy to trade down pieces, because my opponent tripled his pawns. My strategy being, winning by pawn promotion.

It's just that, I got excited by being able to implement a fork and a discovered attack in a couple of these games, so I wanted to understand better how to get to superior positions and be more purposeful in my implementation of tactics. Instead of them being accidental, haha.

From my experience, atleast in longer games, the trick to spotting tactics more reliably is to keep vital information at the top of your head for any potential use later. 

For example say e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6.. now just keeping the information that the knight on c6 is defending the pawn on e5 can be handy. Sure it has no use right now but it "might" have a use later on in some potential tactic.

Also i think just going through random variations in a game for fun is also a good way, simple things like "what if i take this pawn and give up my knight, is there a way to get it back?" , just trying out fun new lines