Hey i love to hear your definition of Positional Play? And covers postional play?
I'd like to hear your definition of "positional play" and to know how it differs from tactics. Because if you move a piece you've used a tactic, by definition.
No way you read any of Silman's books to say thay he is wrong about something.
Imbalances, imbalances and imbalaces. Come back to us when you finished studying that and say what you said about Silman again.
Has Random House published an award winning chess book? That would be a ..... big fat NO.
Again take this to one of the articles on chess.com about positional play written by a GM. I think ... i know we will love the tactics they use to straighten you out about the difference between Tactical Chess and Postitional Chess.
Silman is a great writer and teacher. I've read part of Reassess your Chess. What I take issue with is the language of calling the terrain a positional imbalance. A chess game is one battle. In it you must manuever your cannons, archers, mounted troops, and so on. Every move is tactical by definition. Playing the position is tactical. Every imbalance is a tactical feature of the battle. I take issue only with his usage of the word tactic as being seperate or somehow removed from positional moves. Every manuever and move is a tactic whether it captures or threatens anything or not. Some of the elite chessplayers have forgotton what the game really is based on and that in a single battle everything that happens in it from someone diffing a foxhole to a sergeant eating his lunch so he has energy to fight on is part of the tactical situation.
Your approach to this arguement sounds like
the guy i had a chat with about resigning games 3 months ago.
Twisting things around and around to prove a lost point. Even changing the content of the arguement when cornered. When he lost one part of the chat he forget it and focus on the one had options to continue his point. He was rather good at holding his position. His tactics were rather transparent as after i pointed them out to everybody he slowly but sureley gave up.
Hey can i pick the article on positional play where we can continue this. This is entertaining but i have to continue with more worth task at this site. You require the attention of a professional and not just any. A GM nothing less.
we're arguing semantics here. but yeah there is overlap. from what i understand (which is not much), tactics is short term strategic play (e.g. in the next 3 moves, if I instead take here here and then there I'll be ahead in compensation afterwards) and positional play is long term strategic planning. Positional play of course is tactics, but long term (e.g. in the next 10 moves, if I place my pawns here and knight here and align my rooks on this file, then I'll be ahead).
Hey i love to hear your definition of Positional Play? And covers postional play?
I'd like to hear your definition of "positional play" and to know how it differs from tactics. Because if you move a piece you've used a tactic, by definition.
See in order to get across to this guy you have to take it step by step.
The thing is you say you know the definition of Tactics so you think but not willing to list your definition of Positional Play. So your method is what positional is not by saying what it is. Crazy!
we're arguing semantics here. but yeah there is overlap. from what i understand (which is not much), tactics is short term strategic play (e.g. in the next 3 moves, if I instead take here here and then there I'll be ahead in compensation afterwards) and positional play is long term strategic planning. Positional play of course is tactics, but long term (e.g. in the next 10 moves, if I place my pawns here and knight here and align my rooks on this file, then I'll be ahead).
Exactly. De la Maza misuses the word tactics the same way. He considers combinations to be synonymous with tactics and ignores the rest. That's where I take a semantic difference. Combinations are combinations. Tactics are all the moves that support any plan or lack of plan for that matter in a chess game.
Hey i love to hear your definition of Positional Play? And covers postional play?
I'd like to hear your definition of "positional play" and to know how it differs from tactics. Because if you move a piece you've used a tactic, by definition.
See in order to get across to this guy you have to take it step by step.
The thing is you say you know the definition of Tactics so you think but not willing to list your definition of Positional Play. So your method is what positional is not by saying what it is. Crazy!
My point is simply that everything commonly called "positional play" is tactics. There is no difference. Like I said, use a dictionary, if you can afford one.
Below the 1700 rating, games are won and lost almost exclusively on tactics. You'll find that the player with the more limited knowledge of positional ideas is the one that loses those games more often than not. You're not going to be as likely to find knockout tactics to play if your opponent has a better gameplan and has made your position cramped or full of holes. The issue I have with exclusively learning tactics without any positional considerations is that you are just waiting for your opponent to lose, rather than actively working to win.
Hey i love to hear your definition of Positional Play? And covers postional play?
I'd like to hear your definition of "positional play" and to know how it differs from tactics. Because if you move a piece you've used a tactic, by definition.
See in order to get across to this guy you have to take it step by step.
The thing is you say you know the definition of Tactics so you think but not willing to list your definition of Positional Play. So your method is what positional is not by saying what it is. Crazy!
My point is simply that everything commonly called "positional play" is tactics. There is no difference. Like I said, use a dictionary, if you can afford one.
Your funny.
With you i would have to argue stinking point of the definition of Positional Play which would take 6hrs and then you would agree with me.
When you say a GM does not know what they are talking about....by slim chance you might be right. But when you claim every GM that has talked about the subject and does not know more than you on Tactics.
That makes you stupid!
Below the 1700 rating, games are won and lost almost exclusively on tactics. You'll find that the player with the more limited knowledge of positional ideas is the one that loses those games more often than not. You're not going to be as likely to find knockout tactics to play if your opponent has a better gameplan and has made your position cramped or full of holes. The issue I have with exclusively learning tactics without any positional considerations is that you are just waiting for your opponent to lose, rather than actively working to win.
+1
Hey i love to hear your definition of Positional Play? And covers postional play?
I'd like to hear your definition of "positional play" and to know how it differs from tactics. Because if you move a piece you've used a tactic, by definition.
See in order to get across to this guy you have to take it step by step.
The thing is you say you know the definition of Tactics so you think but not willing to list your definition of Positional Play. So your method is what positional is not by saying what it is. Crazy!
My point is simply that everything commonly called "positional play" is tactics. There is no difference. Like I said, use a dictionary, if you can afford one.
Without going too deeply into the discussion (I'm gonna play a game then do some homework), I've reached a conclusion similar to this. Ideally, tactics and strategy are hard to separate. Roughly, I think of strategy as the ideas for both sides in a position while tactics are what the players use to "fulfill" those ideas and make use of them.
@Ron-Weasley, I see you are being tripped up by the semantics. You're right that all chess moves are tactics. Even if I do something very quiet like move a pawn up to help secure a pawn formation or remove a weak point, that is certainly a tactic. But, it is a tactic used to help improve a position consideration. Silman never even panders to the "tactics vs position" argument in his book, he simply wants to teach the student away from playing reactionary attack/defense chess; this is not tactical chess any more than the chess he teaches is.
Tactics without positional considerations is like doing a scientific experiment without any theory. Experiments are the only things that are real and concrete, and theories are just ideas and abstractions. But they ARE different, even if they are very much intertconnected. So, when chess authors talk about "positional chess" or "strategy" vs. "tactics", what they are really talking about are the abstract considerations of each position--the things you can't use algebraic notation to explain. It's an important part of the chess thought process. Tactics are the steps you take to achieve your strategy, to test your theory. As another metaphor, you might be a brilliant programmer, and set out to make a program, and you're brilliant, so your code is going to work, but without any considerations as to the design or flow of your program, it'll still be a bad program. To say that all architecture is just carpentry is naive.
This can go on all day so i have to take quotes to save my time and not timeout in my games.
From http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/difference-between-positional-and-tactical-play
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Most top rated players employ both positional and tactical, so it's difficult to categorise exactly, however positional play is concerned with careful planning of the pieces to control the centre and guard all important squares, adhering to all the chess principals of development, to seek advantage by position alone can be a powerful way to play. Tactical play is concerned with combinations to win pieces or advantages in position so they are somewhat linked.
Tactics requires seeing. Strategy requires thinking.
Tactics is what we do when there's something to do. Strategy is what we do when there's nothing to do.
Again more quotes to prove a point and save me from a headache.
Reference >>>
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/difference-between-positional-and-tactical-chess
Postional play consists of trying to gain some of these 4 things, the more of these 4 things you are winning compared to your opponent the more likely you will win.
1) A better pawn structure
2) Your king is more safe
3) Your pieces cover more squares
4) Your pieces are more developed
Strategic play is the the thinking aspect of planning a change. Tactics are the muscle behind the strategy.
Strategy is the wisdom, Tactics is the power
As for "dynamic and static" are can be more easily explained as "attack and defense" attacking is good defending is bad, so you want the more dynamic position instead of the more static position most of the time.
Calculitive play is pretty self explanitory basically thinking " if then if then if then"
I would like to first off say, that I think it is actually very very possible for someone to get to 2000 level using only tactics. The reason I know this is because I have done it. However, once I got to that 2000 ish level (uscf) I began finding it incredibly difficult to improve by just calculating (the if i go there he goes there stuff) because everyone saw pretty much everything tactically that I did, and would hardly blunder. So I made an adjustment to my play. I first began by reading three books: "How to Reasess Your Chess (4th edition)" by Silman of course, then I read "Think Like a GM" - by Kotov, then I read "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy" by John Watson.
As soon as I did this, I was in a full on positional mindset, and started to gain tons of rating points through the slow positional grind style. Currently my rating is now on the climb at around 2185 USCF. Moral of the story is: You can't just play positionally or just tactically. You've got to be able to do both very effectively. If one was to look at the games of Shirov, Tal, and Alehkine (some of the most fierce tactical players ever!) I am sure that one would find that they all play positional chess extremely well too.
My 2 cents.
I agree. I play according to my opponent weakness. By this i mean if i know i am going to face multiple Tactical Players with little understand or Positional Play or they value it very little. I start off with Positional Play and take away as much as i can in a game. I find many players that have this mind set.
Other wise i look at the situation and check for a tactical or positional weakness in my opponents camp/structure. At the same try to mininmize mine if i can in the game.
Tactisional play is the best
Tactisional play is the best
At the beginning of the game..... until you blunder and wonder why.
Huh is what you are saying about now!
6 months from now you will figure it out.
I'm sure it's possible to reach 2000 on tactics, though I would note that MDLM had read Silman before he launched into his tactics self-improvement program.
MDLM also had the brain power to get a Ph.D in computer science from MIT and his dissertation was on computer chess.
So he's no ordinary 1400 player with a gleam in his eye for a higher rating. I wouldn't expect MDLM's results to generalize to many other people and from what I've read, no one following his program has achieved his results.
I'm also in the camp which believes it more than likely MDLM was using a hidden computer in the tradition of the MIT team that worked card-counting schemes at Las Vegas blackjack tables. There have also been people who have used wearable computers at casino blackjack.
It's convenient that MDLM's chess strength -- tactics -- was the same strength of a computer chess program. It's also convenient that he stopped playing chess after reaching his goal.
But that's just my opinion.
Is the choice of 1.d4 instead of 1.e4 tactical or positional?
You guys seem to know everything Chess A-Z.