As long as you don't get so deep into positional nuances that you forget to calculate/tap into your board vision & awareness of would-be positional blunders (look up "chess crimes" to see what I mean (Dr. Can has made several videos & Chessable courses on them)).
Improving at positional chess by purposely keeping calculation and tactics to a minimum?
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12 hrs ago
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#3
einWWe wrote:
As long as you don't get so deep into positional nuances that you forget to calculate/tap into your board vision & awareness of would-be positional blunders (look up "chess crimes" to see what I mean (Dr. Can has made several videos & Chessable courses on them)).
Of course and I noticed that Karpov and Capablanca don't completely give up on calculation and tactics when they're needed. But when they have the option, they intentionally avoid having to calculate where other players like Kasparov would immediately jump at the opportunity to calculate an elaborate attack. So that's where I got the big picture that positional chess is not only about preventing the opponent's moves and improving your position, but also about deliberately avoiding having to calculate if possible.
12 hrs ago
0
#4
Develop your feel for what a good position looks like. Combinations will flow naturally from good positions.
I think that both Capablanca and Karpov were outstanding at calculation and tactics and that the reason they were so good at position play was because they could foresee the tactical opportunities of their opponents and then move to shut those down. This explains it better than I can:
https://www.chess.com/blog/PatrickDaly/tal-the-positional-genius-and-karpov-the-tactical-master
Positional chess is my favorite style and I've been trying to read about it to get better at it such as preventing your opponent's moves and improving the position of your worst placed piece. I've looked at a lot of Karpov's games and noticed that he hardly calculates or relies on tactics and complicated variations.
I had a realization: if someone is winning without ever really calculating or relying on tactics, then by default they must be playing very positionally. I'm not saying to completely abandon calculation and tactics, but if I intentionally try to keep it at a minimum, then it should force me to think positionally instead, right?
It seems as if Karpov and Capablanca play positionally because they go out of their way to avoid relying too much on calculation and tactics. I noticed they would have many opportunities in a game to take on complex variations and calculate far ahead, but instead they end up making a very simple move just because they didn't want to bother with calculating too much.