lol. It seems I have started World War III. Didn't mean to do that. Maybe I should take up checkers!!! My thanks to those few who really tried to give me good advice.
Why is it so difficult to think positionally?
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It's hard to think positionally because chess is entirely tactics. "Positional chess" was invented to sell books.
I think that a chessplayer needs both positional and tactical chess. Sometimes the distinction between the two is not entirely clear. Even when we calculate a certain tactical line, we need to evaluate the resulting position somehow. If the resulting position is not a mate or a (clear) material advantage, the evaluation has to use some positional parameters.
Playing according to a plan is important. If there are no immediate tactics on the board, play your positional plan (instead of hoping that there will be some tactics "somehow"). Good tactical possibilities are often the result of better positional play, they don't appear magically on the board.
Does everyone have the same problem as I do? I try to evaluate the position on the board, so that I can make good positional moves, but I seem to miss all the strengths and weaknesses that I'm supposed to be able to see. Am I doomed forever to be strictly a tactical player?
Maybe showing an example would help us to understand your point better. Of course it is not possible to explain positional chess in a few sentences, but i can try to sum up a few points:
- looking at well-commented games helps a lot (and i think that textual comments are often more useful than tons of variations, although sometimes variations are definitely necessary)
- looking at the key squares may help, although the term itself may be debatable; often the centre is very important (although sometimes during kingside attack, squares in front of the king may be of more importance)
- the concept of good and bad bishops is important (and to know, when a knight may be better than a bishop and vice versa)
- to know, when to exchange a certain piece, and when not to exchange
- to know something about pawn structures (which are related to the bishop concept, see above)
- endgames are important too, but you can apply positional play much earlier in the game (and in fact, even in openings and early middlegames positional play may be of importance; example: Black plays the queens gambit declined. His bishop Bc8 is "bad" for the moment being, so his plan must be to "free" his bishop by playing e6-e5 later in the game)
I remember a otb game versus a player, who played on the same level during opening/middlegame but he had no clue of the bishop concept.
The endgame was 2 bishops+pawns on both sides. It was objectively equal, but i managed to exchange his good bishop versus my bad bishop, so the resulting endgame was in my favor (i won later, but only due to his erroneous exchange).
Olli