How to improve positional chess skills?

To improve your tactical skills, you can just keep on doing tactics. Practice, and learn from your mistakes, but how do you improve your skills in positional chess?

I think the best thing to do is watch Kingscrusher videos. 

During his videos he usually says something sly like "If I gave you 5 seconds what would you do here in this position" 

Usually I pause the video at this point and try to solve the puzzle if you will. 

Even Nakamura watches Kingscrusher. 

"Waste of time", Kingscrusher videos are a "waste of time". Ha, say that to Nakamura... 

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To  improve your skills in positional chess requires 3 changes in perspective regarding how  to play chess.

The confidence of understanding the correct perspective of a chess position and the understanding of why  you are making the move you are making will enhance your positional understanding throughout your  chess career.

There is a lot of new information in this post.  Read it slowly and carefully.  Anytime you don't understand or have questions.   Just stop and  either message me or send me a  note.

Purpose of development - why beginners shouldn't study openings

Purpose of development -  you will learn that the purpose is to gain advantages in time, space and material by using the strategies of restraining, blockading, and executing the enemy to gain control of the center (the squares d4,d5,e4,e5).  Piece moves are direct development.  Pawn moves are aids to development, therefore they are indirect development moves.

 beginners shouldn't study openings 

Almost all strong players would disagree.  The reasons they disagree are contained in 2 books that will change your  perspective of how to play chess.  The 2 books are:  "My System" , by Aaron Nimzowitsch. and "Pawn Power In Chess", by Hans  Kmoch. 

I have learned the basic fundamentals, like develop your pieces, protect them, castle early, don't move pieces twice in a row etc.

Those  are NOT the basic fundamentals.

In order to learn  the  basic fundamentals you must change your perspective of the game of chess in 3 ways. First chess is Siege Warfare in game form.   There are 3 basic strategies in Siege Warfare.  They are:  Restrain, Blockade, and Execute the enemy. 

The  second change in perspective has to do with pawns.  The principle that you must learn is:  Winning chess is the  strategically/tactically correct advance of the pawn mass.

The 3rd change in perspective has to do with control of the center.  There are 2 theories in chess regarding control of the center:

Classical center control theory - control the center by occupying the center (d4,d5,e4,e5 squares) with pawns and pieces.

Hypermodern center control theory  - control the center with the power of your pawns and pieces.  This avoids your pawns and pieces becoming targets of the enemy pieces because they are not physically occupying the center (d4,d5,e4,e5).  

Once you learn what the basic techniques of restrain, blockade and execute the enemy are, and combine them in your brain with control the center, develop your pieces, etc. you will understand opening books. You will understand how using the strategies of restrain, blockade, and execute the enemy together with  control the center, develop your pieces, etc. combine to increase or decrease advantages/disadvantages in time, space and  material.  

The change in perspective in your brain causes you to shift your focus back and forth from concentrating on  the squares the pawns and pieces control to concentrating on the pawns and pieces  themselves as you analyze the position.  It is difficult at first to do this.  But as you practice it drastically improves your analysis of the position in front of  you. 

The second change in perspective causes you to concentrate on pawn structure.  Concentrating on pawn structure will reveal 2 things to you.  The first is the 3rd change in perspective which is what center control theory is being applied in the opening that has developed on the board.  You  will learn that there is  a difference in what moves are made if you are fighting for control of  the center with the hypermodern  method with what is called a small but secure center.  Or you are  fighting for control of  the center  with the classical method of occupying the center with your pawns and pieces.  Pawn structure is the terrain of the chess battlefield.  The second revelation is the pawn structure itself which forms the hills, valleys and  mountains of where the  war is fought.   Your plan of  attack move by move has to conform to the pawn structure,  Otherwise  your  battle plan might call for going thru a mountain given the pawn structure of the position on the board.  The bird's eye view of the  pawn structure of the position on the board makes finding candidate moves much easier.  Especially if you know  that one the important characteristics that you are looking for in the pawn structure is where the pawn breaks are or will  be in the very near future.  Pawn breaks are those places in the pawn structure where the opposing pawns are in contact with each  other in a  formation that permits captures of other pawns or pieces.  Also, the execution of a pawn break is almost always the move that signals the first move of the beginning of the middle  game.

I struggle at the next moves - the middle game - lack of plan I guess. What can I do in order to get the initiative in the middle game?

Studying  opening books teaches you the move that begins the middlegame in that opening.  Knowing the exact move when the middlegame begins is a big advantage in itself.  Studying the opening books also teaches you what typical middlegame plan(s) of attack result from the opening you are studying.  Being familiar with the typical middlegame pawn structures and where the pawn breaks are in the opening you  are  playing in a game is a great advantage over your opponent.  All of this information confirms what you wrote in your post:

I believe, that learning an opening (10-15 moves) could give you an advantage in the middle game, especially at my level, and help me have an actual plan. Am I wrong? What should I do?

What should I do? 

Select an opening repertoire that consists of 2 openings as White and 2 openings as Black(one opening against  White's 1.e4 and one opening against White's 1.d4).  Your overarching goal will be to build a visualization pattern memory bank into your brain of those openings, middlegames and endgames and the typical tactics that are themes or motifs in those 3 stages of the game.  As you are studying the openings, the middlegame, the endgame, and tactics your goal in your training is to keep adding visualization patterns to the memory bank in your brain.

I also find it difficult to apply the tactics puzzles I have sold, as there are barely any tactics that can be done, with a bad positioning.

Your chess training system should consist of  adding visualization patterns to your memory bank everyday of the following sections:

1. Tactics visualization pattern memory bank

2. Openings visualization pattern memory bank

3. Midddlegame visualization pattern memory bank

4. Endgame visualization pattern memory bank

fieldsofforce, can you please stop posting this garbage again and again.
"Advance of the pawn mass" alone is enough to tell that it is garbage.

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The pawn mass is all of your 8 pawns.  Almost all GMs, and IMs  will tell you that until you change  your perspective in 3 ways described above you will remain a 1600-1900 player.

What's a positional hook? 

I've studied books by GMs and IMs and I've never seen anything about "pawn mass". 

Restraint and Blocade are just 2 strategies among many others, and there is no strategy called "Execute"

How about "prophylactic", "overprotection"?  

Urk, 

Some possibilities at various levels:
50 Essential Chess Lessons by Steve Giddins
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708100833/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review534.pdf
Chess Strategy for Kids by Thomas Engqvist
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Strategy_for_Kids.pdf
Starting Out: Attacking Play by James Plaskett
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708101549/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review467.pdf
Simple Chess by Michael Stean
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104258/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review400.pdf
Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708094419/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/ammind.pdf
Winning Chess Strategies
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
Chess Secrets: The Giants of Chess Strategy by Neil McDonald
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092313/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review620.pdf
Chess Strategy for Club Players by Herman Grooten
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708101926/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review696.pdf
Chess Training for Post-beginners by Yaroslav Srokovski
https://web.archive.org/web/20140712013538/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review945.pdf

http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Chess-Training-for-Post-Beginners-77p3877.htm
Chess Strategy: Move by Move by Adam Hunt
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093249/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review890.pdf
How to Reassess Your Chess (4th ed.) by Jeremy Silman
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708095832/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review769.pdf
Understanding Chess Middlegames by GM John Nunn
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627012322/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen154.pdf
Winning Pawn Structures by GM Alexander Baburin (1998)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140718055446/http://chesscafe.com/text/wps.txt
Understanding Pawn Play in Chess by GM Drazen Marovic (2000)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708110136/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review249.pdf
Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess by GM Drazen Marovic (2001)
http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/books-of-many-flavours
Winning Chess Middlegames, An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures by GM Ivan Sokolov (2009) https://web.archive.org/web/20140708091955/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review676.pdf
Pawn Structure Chess by GM Andrew Soltis (2013)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708101523/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review908.pdf
Chess Structures - A Grandmaster Guide by GM Mauricio Flores Rios (2015)

https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-structures-a-grandmaster-guide/

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Flores_Rios_Chess_Structures-excerpt.pdf
"There is also masses of stuff in the book that made me go 'Oooh!' and 'Aaah!' so I think it will have the same effect on you! In particular, I loved Rios' exposition of White's plan of exerting queenside pressure against Hedgehog systems. I'd seen one of the games he quotes in his chapter but I'd never remotely made any link to a structured way of fighting the Hedgehog structure, so this chapter was a real eye-opener for me ... In conclusion, warmly recommended. Lots to learn!" - GM Matthew Sadler
The Power of Pawns by GM Jörg Hickl (2016)
"The didactic concept of the book is admirable. Each chapter defines the structures, explains the typical characteristics and shows the plans for both White and Black. The reader participates by assessing positions and invariably receives useful tips for practical play." - FM Harry Schaack
Python Strategy by Tigran Petrosian
http://sagarteacheschess.blogspot.com/2015/09/python-strategy-book-review.html
Petrosian’s Legacy by Tigran Petrosian (1990)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708103409/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review309.pdf
Petrosian: Move by Move by Thomas Engqvist
"Engqvist gives us a rare treat and a genuine, sympathetic understanding of one of chess' greats who nowadays tends to gets lost in the shuffle!" - Michael Ciamarra (2014)
Grandmaster Chess Strategy by Jürgen Kaufeld & Guido Kern
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093410/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review812.pdf

@kindaspongey

Your post is  an overwheelmming amount of  information that no one is going to look up.  It would be a  herculean task.

At least with my post you just have to llook up one book.

He's just listed a number of books about positional play in (I think) ascending order of difficulty, together with links to reviews of the books. Anyone looking to buy a book on strategy will find this invaluable.

"prophylactic", "overprotection" are among other strategies that you forgot to mention in your post #7. 

kindaspongey provided good list of books (many of them I've read) - these books will give the OP a structured guidance with examples and exersizes, while your post is useless and even worse - confusing.

And "pawn mass" thing is a useless garbage too.

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Fine just ignore my posts.  I will ignore kindaspongey  and uri65 posts.  Let's leave at that.

My point was that beginners searching for advice should not take your posts seriously and should not be intimidated by your references to GM Ron Henley or any other authority. I am only 1700 OTB player but I've studied enough books to see the difference between good advice and nonsense.

uri65 wrote:

My point was that beginners searching for advice should not take your posts seriously and should not be intimidated by your references to GM Ron Henley or any other authority. I am only 1700 OTB player but I've studied enough books to can see the difference between good advice and nonsense.

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Remember I posted that we could just ignore each other.  But you want to call nonsense what is well known to be one of the best books, "My System", ever written.  All books written since borrow from it for concepts and ideas.

I am not trying to intimidate anyone. 

Anyway take a look at this and please try to look at it with an open mind: 

Think of this list as an analysis tool.  Analyzing is taking a big complicated problem, like finding the right move(s) in a  chess position, and breaking the big problem into smaller simpler problems.  Think of the things on this list as  those smaller  simpler  problems that have to be solved in order  to solve the big problem of finding the right move(s) in a chess position,

Think of this List as a set of pegs in the calculation tree.  The pegs in the list will be great climbing aids in climbing much higher in the calculation tree than you ever could before.  This list is your calculation big tree tool.

Here is the list I have kept since I started playing chess:

Things to do before I  make a move

1. Am I sitting on my hands  now that I am seated at the chess board table?

2. Is my written list in my possession?

3. What is my opponent  threatening to do and what is my best move to stop his threat and  Kill as much of his counterplay as possible ( you will have to learn what killing counterplay is, and how to execute it on the chess board.)

4. What is the pawn structure  on the board and what are the pawn break points? 

     a. Remember pawn moves are permanent because they cannot move backwards.

     b. Are there any pawn majorities on either side of the board?

     c. Are there any open or half-open files on the board?  Who is in control of that file?

     d. Are there any pawn weaknesses on the board?  You will have to learn about (doubled pawns,

         isolated pawns, backward pawns, etc.) and how to exploit those weakenesses

     e. Is the center blocked.  Flank attacks succeed more often when the center is blocked

5. Are there any of  mine or enemy undefended Pieces and/or Pawns?

   a. Beware of pieces and or pawns that are defended indirectly. ( beware of tactics here!)

   b. Beware of pieces and or pawns that are defended backwards. (yes enemy pieces can defend their own backwards because pieces can move  forwards or backwards.  Pawns can only move  forward or  diagonally forward when capturing.

6. Are there any weak square complexes in the position?   Learn what these are and how to exploit.  

7. Have I checked all of these items above 2x before I make a move.

Is there a free version of the book: positional play?