Your Opinion, Positional or tactical?

Could you please post here whether you are a positional player or a tactical player? I'm more of a positional player. Thanks.

I'm a bad positional and bad tactical player.

I'm more of a positional player.

The amount of times I've lost the exchange in recent games proves I'm not tactical.

I guess I try at least to take a Karpov-like approach of just trying to play the best moves whether they be positional or tactical, and if I have a choice of several moves which are roughly equal I'll try to make my decision based on my opponent's style. If I don't know anything about my opponent then I'll make that decision based on their rating. If they're lower rated than me then I'll usually pick the positional continuations, if higher then usually the tactical moves will get played.

I'm  a bad positional player, and even worse tactically!

I try and play positionally turn-based, but in realtime I just go with whatever comes to mind first...

more tactical, but I can play positionally too.

I'm ok in tactics, but I prefer positional play overall. How I like to play is by building up my position and establishing an advantage, and then looking for a way to turn my advantage into an attack. Art of Attack in Chess is a good book on how to positionally build up an attack.

I'd rather define myself as a "blunder all" player

I guess people are, in general, both.  From reading the posts above and thinking about the way I play chess; I think pure tactical or positional play falls short no matter the individual.  Tactics and position should be viewed much like yen and yang.  They are opposites but compliment each other.  Tactics can be used as a tool for improving position.  For example, tactics are often used to rip open a file to give rook access to the enemy camp.  On the other hand a great position can generate tactical manuvers.  Think of the well placed knight on the sixth rank creating attacking possibilities.  Maybe your question is do we think we are more of one than the other.  A great chess player is strong in both areas.

tactic!GO TACTICS PLAYERS

I'm a positional player.

What this basically means is that I give a lot of thought to pawn structure, relative strength of squares, and piece placement. In fact, usually my first thoughts on a position are relating to these concepts.

Only then do I go into tactics. I'm not very good with tactics, relatively speaking, for a player of my level.

i'm kinda blunder all too. but i guess the symbiosis of positional and tactical play gives the best result. and also i consider strong players are equally good in tactical play, so pawn structure and positional advantage is the key. imho :)

I like to think that I'm a tactical player, but that's maybe just because I often suck at positional play.

Positional. I like playing solid positional chess because tactics seem to unveil themselves without a lot of effort as the game progresses. But again it depends on the nature of the position, if it's an open position and lines are opened everywhere obviously I chuck "positional thinking" out the window and go into full tactics mode.

Maybe the definitions for positional and tactical players need to be revisited. I mean, most strong players are decent both at tactics and positional play.

However, you could consider that a tactical player is looking for complications, tactical operations, attacks against the opponent's king, and dynamic unbalanced play, while a positional player will rather look for establishing a positional advantage, piece harmony, and play from there.

With these definitions, players like Anand or Topalov could be considered as "tactical", while Kramnik or Kamsky could be considered as "positional". But of course, positional players can deal with complications, and tactical players can play according to the demands of a quiet position.

i'm more positional in nature, or maybe just not a great risk taker, i prefer a positional sacrifice than a tactical sacrifice that cannot be taken any way... if that clears things better.

I like to think of it more in terms of an "attacker" or "strategist."

The attacker is always looking for ways to get to the King; whether by positionally building up his attack or launching all-out sacrificial melees. He develops his forces, targets the weak points (especially the King!), and systematically builds up his attack until the time is right for him to strike. By this definition, Topalov, Kasparov, and Alakhine are all good examples of the attacker. Attackers are usually more concerned with tempo and position than with material; although a sound attacker does possess a good knowledge of positions.

The strategist is not as concerned with the King during the game. He knows how to attack and can do it too, but doesn't make the attack his ultimate goal. Instead, he is more concerned with long-range advantages like passed pawns, outposts, King safety, and piece positioning. In this light, many people view strategists as boring, but think of them more like avalanches that first need to pick up speed before they come crashing down. They are more concerned about material and will often trade off pieces for simplification after winning a single pawn. (To go into a winning Endgame.)

Some poeple fall somewhere in between these two, but they can best judge for themselves which style they lean to more.

As for me, as I stated before, I like to first build up my position and play out the first few moves as they come. However, once I see an opportunity I prefer to attack than to do anything else. As I play, I like to position my pieces to target weak points or the enemy King. As I said before, reading Vukovic's Art of Attack in Chess has helped me a lot with this. If you want an understanding of how I hope to play in few years, look no further than this book!

I guess I could then be classified as an attacker in the sense that I prefer to do something than to sit around and wait for my opponent to blunder. I'm not an all-out tactical player (whatever a "tactical" player really is, since we all have to learn tactics), but rather something like "a positional attacker."

At least, that's how I see it.

Being a positional player is nice, because you can totally thrash a tactical player, basically without looking at any variations.

I used to do this when I was learning, and of course it frustrated my opponent to no end. In the meantime, said opponent was a professor of Computer Science at a highly respected university. He is a very smart guy, but never got beyond the tactics of the world.

I just try to make the best moves