Increasing Positional Skills through Classical

Sort:
krazeechess
ninjaswat wrote:
krazeechess wrote:

Well, books are the primary way to improve at these things, since positional play is full of concepts and principles. Do you have a coach?

I have a coach, @SantolanBoys61 on chess.com. He helps me a bit but my improvement is primarily to my own direction.

Oh, well then if your coach does not already teach you positional concepts than you should get a book. Another thing I recommend is to have a google doc and a database with all the concepts you know so that you can review and refer back to them.

cabyxiaomi

However, it is also strategic, and many times there are intricacies from structures that can only be found in books or through a private coach. My concern regarding adopting this training technique is: do most of you move the pieces while going over the variations, or do you just do it in your head? I've tried both, but I find it distracting when I have to go back and figure out where my pieces were before moving them. For more details [Url]https://nongamstopcasino.uk/[/Url].

blueemu
cabyxiaomi wrote:

... I find it distracting when I have to go back and figure out where my pieces were before moving them. 

Use two boards. A small one to keep track of the position, and a larger one to play out the variations. Then you can revert to the game position just by copying from the small board to the large one.

KevinOSh

I have heard very good things about Jacob Aagaard's Grandmaster Preparation series. It is too advanced for me at my level but would probably help you a lot.

He's written a book on calculation, one on strategic play, and one on positional play.

ninjaswat
KevinOSh wrote:

I have heard very good things about Jacob Aagaard's Grandmaster Preparation series. It is too advanced for me at my level but would probably help you a lot.

He's written a book on calculation, one on strategic play, and one on positional play.

I’ll see if I can get that on my kindle then, seems very interesting, thanks!

ninjaswat
krazeechess wrote:
ninjaswat wrote:
krazeechess wrote:

Well, books are the primary way to improve at these things, since positional play is full of concepts and principles. Do you have a coach?

I have a coach, @SantolanBoys61 on chess.com. He helps me a bit but my improvement is primarily to my own direction.

Oh, well then if your coach does not already teach you positional concepts than you should get a book. Another thing I recommend is to have a google doc and a database with all the concepts you know so that you can review and refer back to them.

Okay been meaning to make such a list for a while I guess it has a purpose now.

Arnaut10

I don't think I can help you much since you are more experienced and higher rated than me, so you already have better knowledge at all aspects of the game. Best way I can think of improving what you want to improve is by reading chess books properly. Unfortunately you say that they don't help you and I will just ask have you ever gave it a second chance, no harm if it goes bad. Some other ways would be hiring a coach that can help you improve and give you good material, I wouldnt do that unless Im being serious as a chess player. What to do is something you will have to figure out on your own if you dont want a coach, but there is plenty of videos, lessons, courses out there waiting for you to discover them. So look up for them on yt, here, on lichess studies, analyze games of grandmasters playing any opening from your repertoire and so on.

RussBell

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

Pawn Play and Structure - for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/chess-books-on-pawn-play-and-structure

mpaetz

     You were so soundly beaten by someone with a USCF otb rating of 2000 that you feel the need to improve your knowledge of positional play. Yet your rating here is over 2000. This shows you that the type of chess this person has played--longer time controls with more thinking about each move and deeper analysis of positions--teaches a player more about chess than the hundreds of speed games you have played. So try playing classical games, preferably otb, and go over the game with your opponents afterwards to learn what they thinking about and you missed.

     As many others here have suggested, books ARE the way to learn positional principles, unless you have a high-rated expensive coach. Tarrasch, Nimzovich, Euwe and others have written excellent books explaining positional principles.

ninjaswat
cabyxiaomi wrote:

However, it is also strategic, and many times there are intricacies from structures that can only be found in books or through a private coach. My concern regarding adopting this training technique is: do most of you move the pieces while going over the variations, or do you just do it in your head? I've tried both, but I find it distracting when I have to go back and figure out where my pieces were before moving them. For more details [Url]https://nongamstopcasino.uk/[/Url].

I can do both, fine with either setup, really. I don't have the time to go through a book like that, so I've just been using my head so far.

assassin3752

try the chess.com lessons and see if there are any positional stuff in there

ninjaswat
assassin3752 wrote:

try the chess.com lessons and see if there are any positional stuff in there

Looked, and it doesn't really seem to help that much... find any good ones?

assassin3752
ninjaswat wrote:
assassin3752 wrote:

try the chess.com lessons and see if there are any positional stuff in there

Looked, and it doesn't really seem to help that much... find any good ones?

there's this lesson called "positonal masterpieces"

you might wanna check that one out