Look Daddy, No Tactics

Originally posted by onehandgann
I think the game he drew against dass and one he was going to originally use for his post is a much better example of positional play.

Well, maybe from the standpoint of no huge blunders made, but there were still a handful of significant tactical mistakes in the game.

Originally posted by onehandgann
why you won the game now

opponent allow a double attack on the queen and the c7 pawn (tactics imo). Then your opponent put his queen in the worst possible spot and allowed the continued attack on the queen and f7 pawn by allowing you to play Bishop f4. Moves 9-11. After you opponent played Queen e5 he was helpless.

I would say both you and yo ...[text shortened]... ics. You opened poorly and then your opponent played like crap and allowed all kinds of tactics.

and how exactly will that help the thought process after 1.e4 ..e5, this is the type of thinking that i am trying to argue against, how was c3 such a bad move, perhaps to a tactician, however imho it was the only move given the positional dynamics of the situation and the long term strategy that i formulated after move 1. when surprise surprise there were no tactics that i could utilise to help me. i opened poorly, so the Ruy Lopez, the rolls Royce of all 1.e4 openings was a poor choice that i played it badly, lol, tell me then, what is tactically significant about 3.Bb5, yes yes the tacticians say, you cannot win the pawn even after exchanging, positionally viewed we can see that it put real pressure on the dark squares, does it not!

Originally posted by Mad Rook
And Robbie, I'll make one more point that should be obvious, but I'm not sure it's clear in your mind. White's 11.Bf4 was clearly a game winning tactical move. (More correctly, Black's 10th move was a game losing tactical blunder.) You can argue whether 11.Bf4 was also a good positional move, but the positional considerations of that move are not important to the outcome of that game.

dude with all due respect, whether it was a tactical blunder on the part of my opponent or not, honestly i dunno, it was irrelevant, that what i am trying to say, it suited the long term strategic demands of the position, and whether it was tactically significant or not, i dunno, but positionally it made sense.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
dude with all due respect, whether it was a tactical blunder on the part of my opponent or not, honestly i dunno, it was irrelevant, that what i am trying to say, it suited the long term strategic demands of the position, and whether it was tactically significant or not, i dunno, but positionally it made sense.

OK, so let's say that instead of playing 10...Qe5, Black had played 10...Kd8. Would you still have played the nice positional move of 11.Bf4, maintaining pressure on the c7 square? What, you say you'd want to play 11.NxQf6 instead? Why would you want to do that? You'd be taking the pressure off the c7 square, letting Black off the hook in regards to that square, and you'd be removing that very nice knight outpost on d5.

Oh, I see. So sometimes tactics DO trump positional considerations. (Actually, almost all of the time.)

Yeah I think the main question here is if the opponent had high recognition of tactical patterns(he obviously did not) and little or no positional understanding would he have played the bishop to d4(first allowing the possible fork on c7 and then the queen to e5 allowing more of the same. The answer to me is a clear no. His opponent definetely needs to study tactics. I think few will say this game was a strategic battle.

By the way a good book for you Rob is Larry Kaufmans The Advantage in Black and White that is if you want play games that are mostly won by small positional edges. His opening are all very positional in nature and do a lot to prevent tactical attacks. Not my cup of tea but you might like it.

And I guess I really do not see how the move c3 was positionally strong as it preventing your from castling short and at least temporily locked in your light squared bishop I guess positionall considerations like that are open to interpretation but the tactical blunders that later followed by your opponents were obvious mistakes not open to debate and you had no moves better than ones played to take advantage of those blunders but you did have other moves that could have been positional in nature that completely ignored the pressure on c7 and the possible fork there. I think most would say you won the game by tactical means. Anyway enough of this at least for me to enjoy the game and that includes studying it I like to mix it up which means studying more than just tactics. But to say that tactics are not important or that few games are won or lost by tactical awareness just seems silly to me.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
dude with all due respect, whether it was a tactical blunder on the part of my opponent or not, honestly i dunno, it was irrelevant, that what i am trying to say, it suited the long term strategic demands of the position, and whether it was tactically significant or not, i dunno, but positionally it made sense.

the [/i]only[/i] positional move in that game was 17.O-O. and it was unnecessary.

that's it. seriously. the rest of the moves were either tactical or pointless.

oh there are a lot of things that could have happened. What if black did not take the pawn on c3. There was no reason to take it and leaving his pawn on d4 ther woud have prevented the knight from going to c3. What if then black just simply developed by moving his knight to e7 or just pushed the d pawn forward one square opening up a diagonal for his bishop on move 8? What if what if what if. Then what squares would his knight have had?(would never of been able to get to d5 for example). I sure would not agree that Robbie got a positional advantage from his opening. I would argue more his opponent just played poorly.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
so here I am, ive practised my tactical exercises, taken the advice of the most eminent of chess scholars (greenpawn34, a dude with a fide rating of 2000) and practised tactics, tactics and nothing but tactics, after all they tell me it doesn't matter much under an elo of 2000 anyway (Micheal de la Maza eat youre heart out) as most games are decided ...[text shortened]... e this to say, 'Look Daddy, no tactics !'. -regards Robbie Carrobie. 😀

Hmmm.

What exactly do you think a 'tactic' is, anyway? Can you give an example?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
so here I am, ive practised my tactical exercises, taken the advice of the most eminent of chess scholars (greenpawn34, a dude with a fide rating of 2000) and practised tactics, tactics and nothing but tactics, after all they tell me it doesn't matter much under an elo of 2000 anyway (Micheal de la Maza eat youre heart out) as most games are decided ...[text shortened]... e this to say, 'Look Daddy, no tactics !'. -regards Robbie Carrobie. 😀

don't get me wrong, but play several games with 1700+ players in real time controls and you'll see what tactics are all about.

gentlemen, you are missing the point, forget the game, it was simply used as a reference, the whole exercise was to show and prove by reference that lower rated players, like myself, benefit more by studying the game positionally/strategically than we would from any tactical awareness or otherwise.

why and how a tactical awareness helps after 1.e4 and in any other position in the decision making progress still remains a mystery

why positions should be viewed tactically first and foremostly considering that the masters tell us, no less an authority than Fischer himself, that tactics spring from good positional play not the other way around

until these remain unanswered i remain unconvinced

ultimately if tactics is what rocks your socks then so be it, i wish you well, however for pure enjoyment sake, i leave you with the words of Anatoly Karpov, which in essence is a summation of what i was really trying to say, 'If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic', kind regards and thanks for having taken the time , i still remain however, yours sincerely unconvinced. Robbie Carrobie

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
gentlemen, you are missing the point, forget the game, it was simply used as a reference, the whole exercise was to show and prove by reference that lower rated players, like myself, benefit more by studying the game positionally/strategically than we would from any tactical awareness or otherwise.

why and how a tactical awareness helps after 1. having taken the time , i still remain however, yours sincerely unconvinced. Robbie Carrobie

fischer was talking about forcing tactics into a strong opponent's rock solid game. with beginners like us we're talking about avoiding simple 1-2 move oversights. until you get on top of those oversights, it's irrelevant what other moves you make.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
gentlemen, you are missing the point, forget the game, it was simply used as a reference, the whole exercise was to show and prove by reference that lower rated players, like myself, benefit more by studying the game positionally/strategically than we would from any tactical awareness or otherwise.

why and how a tactical awareness helps after 1. having taken the time , i still remain however, yours sincerely unconvinced. Robbie Carrobie

I don't think that anyone that says that beginner should study tactics mainly isn't looking for tactics after move cause everybody knows that there is no tactics to be found at that stage. Now what they will say to beginners is that they should study opening principles and tactics. And after 1. e4 e5 any white or black player knows what to do.

Everybody also knows that tactics can only spring from a superior position but nobody can play a perfect positional game. So if you know your tactics and punish the other side when enough positional inacuracies are made you're more than likely to win the game. And knowing tactics can also help you out avoiding positional weaknesses so not to suffer a combinational blow.

And to finalise separating tactics from strategical considerations is more bull$hit than anything else. The simple point is that it is much more easy to study and train tactics than positional themes.

Edit:
Just to amuse you.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1069116

Karpov wrote afterwards that he played 11..Bd6 with the idea of preventing f2-f4. However he missed a simple tactic Qd1 winning a piece.

Karpov in his book: "...BTW the theretical continuation is 11...Qc7 12.Rd1 Bd6 etc., but I decided not to lose time and overlooked that the square d1 is still not occupied by the rook and therefore free for the queen."

I was privileged to be in a room with Karpov in 1993, probably shortly after this game. He chose to show us this one from his recent collection. (He was in South Africa I think on a political delegation in the run up to our first democratic election). Anyway there was a room of us coming to see the games of the great Karpov one evening. He went into a long strategic discussion of the opening and the ideas behind Bd6 while we hung on his every word. He showed us the plan with 11. Qc7 and how he planned to save time with 11. Bd6 and got us caught in his strategic conception and implications behind the awkward looking move ... THEN he played the fork. (We all laughed because didn't see it. We were too busy admiring the brilliant conception of this brilliant grandmaster)

So Karpov lost a game because he was too imersed on a strategical conception and missed a simple tacic (a one move fork!).