Nice tactic in Alapin Sicilian

From a Blitz game I just played.

Yeah e5 is a horrible move, congratz for capitilising though

excuse me but if an obvious tactic is available, doesn't that by definition mean one side blundered?

Ok, I think it does. Blunders generate tactics

yeah, but it depends if the tactic is actually useful. Will playing it improve your position. Generally it does, but not always.

I think the IM is saying that 8. Nb5 isn't the tactic, but that 9. Qxd5 is.

In this example there are two blunders, but I don't think resulting captures can be called tactics:

It could happen that one side just outplays the other until there is no good move for the second player. This wouldn't require any obvious blunders, merely for one player to play much stronger moves, reaching a winning position.

Yes, but that would be play from both sides without blunders.  One side probably made a mistake some where, but that doesn't mean it was a decisive blunder.

Well ... exactly, a normal chess game then. I didn't say that neither player had made a mistake. But a blunder is something that just loses material on the spot for no good reason.

Yes. I am of the opinion that blunders always come from weak positional moves made earlier. If I fall into a tactic I don't think "why didn't I see it?". I think "why did I allow it to arise in the first place?".

Case in point, black had a knight that was clearly in danger. Even if you don't see that e5 loses it immediately, you should not let your pieces in such a situation.

Nb5, hits the queen an prepares, Nc7+ winning back my own queen after it takes the knight

one side making much stronger moves is a different way of saying one side makes blunders

If a tactic is made available, one that changes the position from drawing to winning, then the other player must have made a mistake, whether a move before or prior to that.

The only way to refute this is by claiming that perfect play still leads to a forced win for one side.

If that is not the case however, then by definition, when a tactic that changes the game from drawing to winning is available one side has made a mistake. There is no question about it.

Yeah I actually typed all that stuff out, and then decided it wasn't worth posting it, but I agree.

I think IM Pfren took this thread as maybe an advice on how you should play the Alapin so that this tactic may occur. That was not my intention at all, This game went out of my limited opening knowledge and then this tactic was available

Papa Steinitz would agree! :)

But the whole point is, blunders and mistakes are different things.

And Vivinski, I'm not trying to be pedantic, but saying that tactics only appear when one side makes a blunder is fundamentally misunderstanding the game in my opinion. Don't tell me you've never lost a game by simply being outplayed, gradually, over a series of sub-optimal moves.

That actually doesn't happen to me a lot. Most if not all of my games are decided by flat out blunders.

Only by magnitude, which is relative.

Anyway, I said mistake. Mistake is simply an error, a bad move. I did not speak of the magnitude of the mistake, because that is irrelevant to my point.

Dracula, Angel, Lestat, Carmilla, and Nosferatu were all great attackers.  I'm not sure of the blood drinking, though.

Yeah, I get that.  For some reason I thought the queen had a better move.  What led to this position?