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I prefer prophylaxis chess. Look up Tigran Petrosian; a Titan of the chess world.
could you explain prophylaxis style?
Glex, it's possible to win without attacking precisely because so many players have the same attitude as you, they play to win and take risks in doing so. It's true that if two equally matched players are happy to play passively some enterprising play is needed to keep the game from petering out to a draw. But how often do two equally matched players play chess? More likely one will outplay the other in some phase of the game (lkely the endgame for our prototypical "defensive" player)
Of course, that's a moot point since only bad players are purely "attacking" or "defensive"
Yes, one can win without performing an attack. But in the sense of the topic, you need to attack (to play for the win) in order to win. If one doesn't include "attacking style" somewhere in a game then he/she can't win that event.
The most simple proof of that is backsolving a won chess game.
A chess game is won by a checkmate, by your opponent's resignation, on time or by being awarded a win due to your opponent's failure to adhere to the rules.
1) checkmate: Since your opponent can't force you to checkmate him (you can resign on your turn if you don't want to checkmate) and can't get into a checkmate himself (such a move is considered to be illegal according to game rules), when you checkmate you do this by your will, hence you have applied "attacking play".
2) resignation: When your opponent resigns, that's because a checkmate is inevitable (given your opponent would have kept adhering to the rules if he hadn't resigned), so this case is a shortened version of either 1) or of 4).
3) on time: Winning on time also requires you to have had a wish to win, otherwise you could have violated the game rules just before your opponent is about to lose on time, and you could have avoided winning (for example, when it's your opponent's turn and he/she has 1 sec left you could turn off the clock which is considered to be forfeiting the game, or you could resign).
4) rules violation: The only possible way to win without attacking play is if you are awarded a win due to your opponent's violation of the rules provided you have been aiming for less than a win and haven't tried to win. But since this kind of win is dependent on the opponent, not on you, it's in no way connected with your playing style, be it attacking or defending, and is more or less irrelevant to the current discussion.
So, if you want to win, you have to try to win, and to apply attacking style. As my countryman Hristo Stoichkov says, "Who plays wins, who doesn't play doesn't win".
Attack is often the best form of defence
GIex wrote:
UnratedGamesOnly wrote:
GIex wrote:
UnratedGamesOnly wrote:
GIex wrote:
To win, you have to attack. Otherwise you can draw at best.
But the matter is you needn't always win. To be successful, you need to score at least 50% against relatively equally strong opponents, which means you should have (wins + 0,5*draws)/(total games)>=0,5.
In other words, winning one game and losing one is equal to drawing both. Moreover, if you play defensively when you don't have the initiative and manage to draw the game, after that win a game where you have the initiative, that would be a great result.
Have a look at some GM or other competitive player. Magnus Carlsen, for example, has w/d/l ratio of 34/54/12%, which means he's won a third of the games he's played, but he scores 61%, which is a very good result. That's because if he's not won a game he's usually avoided losing it too, and that's for over 1/2 of the games he's played.
This is sooo incorrect...
lol
Which? And why?
GIex wrote:
To win, you have to attack. Otherwise you can draw at best.
Incorrect...you do not have to attack to win.
There is a difference between "attacking" as a playing style which is the sense of the topic, and an "attack" as a middlegame plan. As far as the topic is about the first and not the second meaning of the word, I believe one can't win without attacking. But here are my reasons.
"To attack" as a style means to "to aim for a win", as opposed to "to defend" which means "to try to disallow your opponent to win".
"An attack" as a middlegame plan means "a consequence of moves that aims to vitiate the opponent's king's safety and checkmate" - attack on the king, or "pawn advancement (on the flank opposite to the enemy's king) that aims to gain space and/or disrupt the opponent's pawn structure" - usually the minority attack.
In chess, there are 4 (or 3) ways to win a game:
1) by checkmate;
2) by your opponent's resignation (shortening the game if an oncoming checkmate is obvious, or by some other consiedration);
3) by being awarded a win due to your opponent's failure to adhere to the rules, whenever the penalty for the violation is such;
4) on time (may be considered as a subtype of 3).
The first way - checkmating, can be reached by either a successful attack on the opponent's king, or by checkmating in the endgame when the opponent's king is already exposed and can't defend due to material inferiority, due to your opponent's mistake that you manage to exploit or for some other reason. Hence there are ways to win by checkmate without performing an attack, not to mention the non-checkmate ways to win.
However, to win without playing to win is impossible. At least as far as your opponent can't force you to win, because if you don't attend the event you'll have a loss, or a draw at best if the event's rules allow it. Hence it's impossible to win without playing to win, in other words without attacking play.
Therefore one can't win without attacking play, although one can win without an attack on the opponent's king. Otherwise, as I said, a draw is what can be achieved at best.
Korchnoi made a career out of defending tough postions and winning. Petrosian went three years without a loss in the USSR championships. While im not trying to argue, nor do i want to get involved in a "im right your wrong" posting war, i simply disagree with you that attacking play must be present to win.
I have found that some like to launch a full scale attack, right out of the gate.
Me? I prefer to develop pieces first and defend the king (castling) before launching an attack.
I'm not saying either style is better. Depends on the skills and attitudes of the players. That's just what I happen to prefer.
P.S.: Also, at lower level play mad attackers tend to step into big doo-doo. One misstep in their feral attack...and I'm gonna get 'em because they didn't set up a defense and they are prone to blundering.
They think (correctly) that you can't win unless you eventually checkmate the king i.e. attack that king.
They're wrong in that a player has to play for this directly. As said, you can defend until your opponent is worse, and only then capitalize on your better position.
There is a particularly annoying player at my club who does this... his main concern at all times is not allowing you any clear way to create play... but if you slip up just a little he'll suddenly play very actively. I say annoying because you can start to lose your sense of danger... and then BAM lol.
waffllemaster wrote:
They think (correctly) that you can't win unless you eventually checkmate the king i.e. attack that king.
They're wrong in that a player has to play for this directly. As said, you can defend until your opponent is worse, and only then capitalize on your better position.
There is a particularly annoying player at my club who does this... his main concern at all times is not allowing you any clear way to create play... but if you slip up just a little he'll suddenly play very actively. I say annoying because you can start to lose your sense of danger... and then BAM lol.
I have to agree with that type of play. Im guilty of it myself. There is something a little extra satisfying about playing an agressive player. Just keep throwing up defense after defense, and sacrificing back pieces waiting for that one mistake, and then WHAM!
Patience is a virtue for a reason :-)
I think the question is more getting at that situation where there are two (or more) viable moves. One may be aggressive, or "offensive" i.e. attack a weakness, prepare to attack a weakness, threaten or perform a sacrifice. The other may be more passive, or "defensive", i.e. reposition the king, strengthen an outpost, etc.
The question I guess is asking, all other things being equal, which route would you take? Obviously, it depends on the position, as every move does. But if we are looking at general preferences over a serious of games, I'd have to say when such choices are presented to me, I tend to the offensive.
ThePeanutMonster wrote:
I think the question is more getting at that situation where there are two (or more) viable moves. One may be aggressive, or "offensive" i.e. attack a weakness, prepare to attack a weakness, threaten or perform a sacrifice. The other may be more passive, or "defensive", i.e. reposition the king, strengthen an outpost, etc.
The question I guess is asking, all other things being equal, which route would you take? Obviously, it depends on the position, as every move does. But if we are looking at general preferences over a serious of games, I'd have to say when such choices are presented to me, I tend to the offensive.
All other things are never equal.
Personally I'd rather give my opponent the opporunity to go wrong (as they so often do). If I make an unsound move then there's two players working to destroy my position
UnratedGamesOnly wrote:
Korchnoi made a career out of defending tough postions and winning. Petrosian went three years without a loss in the USSR championships. While im not trying to argue, nor do i want to get involved in a "im right your wrong" posting war, i simply disagree with you that attacking play must be present to win.
What I mean is not that defedning is wrong. What I say is that to win (as opposed to draw or lose) you have to play agressively. Even if not for the entire game, at least for a sequence of moves preceding your win.
Petrosian has a very good strategy of using somehow "waiting" moves, or as some people call them "low-calc" moves, that aren't forcing but improve the position. In this way he makes his opponents spend more time on thinking, as often there are no obvious threats that they can recognize and analyze with priority to other variations, hence his opponents sometimes overlook some of his winning lines. However, when Petrosian wins, he uses an offensive line too, to checkmate or to win material or other advantage that can make the opponent to resign in view of the inevitable game outcome. That's true for other "positional" players too.
If a chess game ends with a checkmate, that checkmate has been forced by the winning side (as I wrote, you can't force the opponent to checkmate you). Hence the winning side has played agressively at least for the final few moves forming the mating variation.
Then the matter is what has been played before that variation, and from what position you can win?
I believe that to attack (attack in the sense of playing for the win, but not counterattack, deflect, interpolate, defend by posing threats or in other similar sense) you have to stand better. That's by definition, as long as "standing better" means "having a potential to win with correct play". Therefore you need to reach a similar position in order to win.
That can be done in three ways:
1) if you are White and play a winning line from the beginning. As long as White has the first move advantage, if anyone stands better in the beginning, that should be White, otherwise chess wouldn't have been played for a win.
2) if you take an advantage after your opponent's mistake. A "defensive style" can help you with allowing your opponent to make a mistake while being unable to find a proper way to attack you. But that's dependent on the opponent's skills too, therefore this kind of style can't guarantee you that the opponent will blunder, hence can guarantee you neither to take an advantage nor to subsequently win.
3) if you take an advantage after equalizing (no matter what color you play and whether or not there have been preceding equalizations throughout the game). What "defensive style" can help you with is equalizing. But equalizing doesn't mean winning. You have to then take an advantage and win with proper offensive play.
In other words, being good at defending increases your chance not to lose, being good at attacking increases your chance to win a position where you stand better. Both are important. But you can't win by defending, neither you can avoid losing by attacking (as attacking in an inferior position will only expose you and ease your opponent). However the extent to which you will use attacking and defending is up to you, as if applied correctly, both will contribute to your overall performance, as in Magnus Carlsen's games outcomes' distribution and respective scoring percentage that I gave as an example.
ThePeanutMonster wrote:
I think the question is more getting at that situation where there are two (or more) viable moves. One may be aggressive, or "offensive" i.e. attack a weakness, prepare to attack a weakness, threaten or perform a sacrifice. The other may be more passive, or "defensive", i.e. reposition the king, strengthen an outpost, etc.
The question I guess is asking, all other things being equal, which route would you take? Obviously, it depends on the position, as every move does. But if we are looking at general preferences over a serious of games, I'd have to say when such choices are presented to me, I tend to the offensive.
Arctor wrote:
All other things are never equal.
Personally I'd rather give my opponent the opporunity to go wrong (as they so often do). If I make an unsound move then there's two players working to destroy my position
I think this choice depends on the ratio of your offensive capabilities and the opponent's defensive capabilities, and the ratio of your defensive capabilities and the opponent's offensive capabilities.
Given the position allows both offensive and defensive play, you shouldn't seek the answer in the position. You should take into account the human factor, for it is the one that will make the difference. However, if you don't take into account both players' skills in both types of approach (attack/defend), you'll be unable to make the right choice.
For example, if you are very good at attacking and decent in defending, you should attack someone that's equal at both, or defend against someone that's excellent in defending and poor at attacking. This way you'll be able to either maintain equality, or to take an advantage after which the position will no longer be suitable to both approaches - you'll then have to attack.
If you don't know your opponent's capabilities however, which is the common case in internet play, you should take only your skills into account, and some other factors that may require you to aim for a certain outcome. After all, chess is a game of mistakes, and if you don't make mistakes you should do fine, no matter who you are playing against. "Who is your opponent tonight, tonight I am playing against the Black pieces", as Akiba Rubinstein said.
Thank you all for explaining!
I am dizzy from reading this thread.
I am reminded of the virtues of the KISS principle.
"Chess is mental torture" according to Kasparov. Strangely though it keeps being played.
Mar 1, 2012
0
#59
rating2853 wrote:
could you explain prophylaxis style?
Prophylaxis is to understand what your opponent is trying to achieve and to frustrate their plans, AND TO IMPROVE YOUR POSITION by any amount. so if your opponent wants to play Bb5, which will win, you play a6 to stop that. (Made up position)
DaBigOne!
You don't live on EARTH anymore?
You changed to Toronto!