Ratings

But every one of those exchanges is what stockfish would have done in that position. Try exchanging pieces with stockfish and see what happens.

I hear you. When I was 1600 my plan was to just wait for a mistake (cherub tells a similar story). So when I faced other 1500 and 1600s, the games at most seemed to have 1 tactical mistake. All the time I was getting equal endgames where neither of us had blundered anything.

Right now I'm below 2000, but when I was 2000 vs other 2000 opponents, if you look at my games, there missed tactical opportunities all the time, for both players.

It is different depending on the playing style but almost all of my games, either blitz or longer, are decided in the middlegame due to tactics. If your son has a talent for tactics then he needs to be more aggressive and try for more complicated positions. Simplified games or those with a lot of maneuvering won't provide the same opportunities for him to beat his opponent tactically.

It isn't about whether the move is good or bad for Stockfish. The evaluation of the move should concern whether or not it is better for the player during the game. In a game where one player is better tactically, more complicated positions should be in that players favor. Stockfish would give an evaluation with the assumption that it was playing a game against itself.

Oh, I guess you mean the french exchange game.

Chin of Quinn is more patient than I am... 

Great video by the way. It's good advice for serious games of course, but just wanted to mention following that idea is probably the #1 thing I do to win blitz games against lower rated player... don't capture unless it doesn't something good for me. And if I'm not sure? Error on the side of not capturing. Almost all the time they will improve my position for me, or damage their own, by initiating a capture.

1. My son played black here not white. Looks like u r analyzing for white. My Analysis run through chess-db has every exchange for black as the top engine move. In any case bear in mind this is a 1450 playing 1380 so obviously every move is not an engine move.

My criticism above was that "when both players are willing to trade . . ." 

I give a comment on 2 black moves and 2 white moves that offer trades when it is not a good move.

Particularly black's first offer which involved 2 inaccurate moves in a row (moves 11 and 12). Also move 16 was strange and passive.

Of course not every move is an engine move at that level, but you were defending criticism by saying the engine agreed with these moves. I'm using the engine to renew the criticism that the play was passive and that's why it might seem like tactics don't matter to you.

The criticism U made was that he plays to exchange his active pieces. My response was that every exchange he made was a best engine move. Does your analysis agree with me? Where it doesn't can u point it out to me? Whether other moves were or were not the best is not the issue. 

Read what you wrote - the fact that your son exchanged pieces to avoid losing material has ZERO to do with the fact that he plays to OFFER (and execute, when possible) exchanges that don't necessarily favor him in positions where no immediate tactics are present.

If my opponent puts his/her queen right next to my queen, threatening to chop it off for free, and I can't move anywhere with my queen, obviously I'm going to have to capture.

This has nothing to do with purposefully arranging exchanges when you are active.

tge main point though is that even among low ranked  opponents there is not infrequently no forced tactical opportunities

One thing is very evident - if your son continues to play in this manner, the results will remain similar. We're just giving a practical suggestion for improvement. If you'd rather argue, then I'll just declare you the winner. 

@the_chin_of_quinn everything that needs to be said has been said, I'd say.

Mine was 1647 but lapsed back in 2015....think it may be just slightly better now because back then I did not study at all, just played a lot....now I study just a little, but still just a game to me....work and family are more important...

That was Cherub's criticism (which I agreed with when I thought he was white in that french game).

But in the Sicilian game, I wouldn't need an engine to tell me each of those exchanges were bad.

That's fine, but if these games are to support the idea that tactics aren't important (or are somehow less important) at the 1500 level then you're extremely incorrect. The Sicilian game, where he landed in a bad position I assume without you or him knowing why, when, or what went wrong, can be avoided. But when this sort of play is avoided the complexity of the game will increase, leading to more tactics.

And again, this is an important point, not all tactics are some simple oversight. You need to be able to calculate tactics when trying to validate (or refute) your (or your opponent's) strategic ideas. Or after you get a winning position and need to convert.

Well ok, I guess I should stop  Some players would rather be right and continue what they've always done than hear advice.

Of course it IS important to learn something about all areas of the game. Openings, endgames, strategy, tactics, attack, defense, etc. So if the kid focuses on some other area and learns more about that, that's great... but the idea that tactics aren't important anymore at 1500 is... hard to overstate how absurd that is.

Even those exchanges in the Sicilian game for the most part were appropriate, at least according to the engine, I suspect in order to prevent his already losing position from getting worse. A pair of GM's who reviewed the game at the tournament felt that the weaknesses he allowed at c3 and e3 from the advanced d pawn was the main problem. The more unsound final moves were hail mary attempts at salvaging a lost game.  That game was from the summer at which time he was around 1200.

U may have hit the nail on the head though. He really is scared of making a mistake and this seems to be getting worse.