Is all chess POSITIONAL?

What do YOU think?

I see you have no ratings here for this user name and have played no games and solved no puzzles.

While people can be too focused on ratings, it might help to establish a little credibility for your ideas if you were a highly rated online or over the board player.

Sorry, I deleted everything.

That's a shame. Your ideas were interesting. However, I found it them hard to approach directly without knowing something about who you are.

Chess is a human construct. So it makes sense to play like a human, as well. As Grandmaster Aagaard advised in his book, Excelling at Chess: "Think like a human."

Because to try to think like an engine, or like a tablebase, would be a fool's errand. It would be like a human sprinter trying to "run like a car" - it simply can't be done, nor would it be helpful to attempt it.

Sure, it's true that, until chess is solved, we can't say with utmost certainty that any move is "best" in any given position.

But we don't need to - because we aren't engines, and neither are our opponents.

Making practical, reasonable (positional) decisions can take us quite far in chess.

Your moves don't always have to be "best" - as long as they're "good enough".

It's more common to say that all of chess is tactical, but it could aso be viewed as all positional depending on what you mean by the word.

So my anonymous post on internet forum is a problem, but a 1900 player with hundreds of millions of Youtube views, analyzing "famous" games with computer assistance - obviously not understanding the game - that's not a problem in the chess community.

I would suggest studying games with queen or rook sacrifice only because other games are not "interesting". Also, solve puzzles at least 4 hours a day and make sure to buy a course on every possible position and tactics because that's what chess is all about.

I believe one player said "Tactics flow from a superior position." What was his name... Something like Fischer... Bob Fischer, or was it Bobby?

Has anyone ever heard of him?

An interesting counterpoint:

AlphaZero could "not calculate worth a damn" compared to Stockfish. Stockfish's calculating abilities were over a thousand-fold stronger than AlphaZero's.

Where AlphaZero excelled was its positional intuition - it learned, from millions of self-play games, the kinds of structures and positions that were more likely to lead to a better game, and higher winning odds.

So it would choose its moves based on this form of machine intuition - relying on probabilities to influence its decisions, rather than brute calculation.

This was how it managed to outplay Stockfish, while simultaneously being weaker at calculating than Stockfish - AlphaZero used positional intuition to help it choose its moves.

(The book Game Changer, by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, has a lot of fascinating insider information about this, for anyone interested in the subject ...)

...

Q: is all chess positional?

A: not the way I play it

....

Imagine chess as a battlefield of wits, where knights charge like caffeinated horses and pawns fight tooth and nail for a slice of glory. In this epic showdown, you've got two main strategies: the tactical tornado and the positional pondering.

Tactical play is like a swift ninja strike. It's all about quick calculations and fancy footwork, executing moves that make your opponent's head spin like a chessboard carousel. You're basically a chess magician, pulling rabbits out of hats and making their pieces disappear faster than Houdini on a caffeine high.

But wait, there's more! Enter the positional play, the grandmaster's secret weapon. It's like playing chess with a crystal ball. You zoom out and see the bigger picture, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each piece like a chess detective. You carefully arrange your forces, maneuvering like a chess general on a quest for world domination.

Both approaches have their charm, like a battle between hot chili peppers and smooth jazz. Some players dig the tactical tornado, while others vibe with the positional pondering. But the true chess wizards know that blending both is the ultimate recipe for success. It's like mixing a dash of explosive tactics with a sprinkle of strategic sorcery to create a chess masterpiece.

So, whether you're a ninja on the chessboard or a crystal ball-wielding sorcerer, embrace the chaos, strategize like a boss, and make those opponents bow down to your mighty chess skills! 🏆♟️😄

.....

Nashe

Yes, from a purely logical standpoint, I agree with you: chess is a game of brute calculation, from beginning to end.

But brute calculation itself is also inefficient (and often isn't even needed).

Magnus Carlsen doesn't need to calculate every single possible move available, in every single position, to know what the most promising lines are. He can tell, from positional understanding, which moves are likely the best to focus on - thus, eliminating the rest.

By this logic, the most efficient form of chess should, IMO, be a combination of calculation and positional insight. This would make a 32-man tablebase unnecessary, because positional understanding would eliminate the need to calculate (or to store) irrelevant lines or moves.

A 32-man tablebase, by contrast, would waste immense storage space by including countless lines and variations that don't even matter at all.

The greater the positional understanding, the narrower and simpler the game becomes, for the player.

A weak player may look at a complicated position and feel overwhelmed by all the possible moves and lines to consider.

A strong player may look at the same position and immediately see that only a few specific lines need to be considered - and will understand that they can safely ignore everything else ...

This is the difference between pure calculation in all directions, and calculation that's "targeted" by positional understanding ...

Yes, all chess is positional. The only exceptions are endgames such as K vs K, K vs KB, etc where position makes no difference.