Originally posted by daanhlxI'm not too good at explaining this,but I'll give it a try.
What is meant with strategy in chess? And what are tactics? And what is positional play?
Strategy is your long term plan,it's not about calculating concrete lines.For instance,when in a game you say to yourself: 'my kingside is secure,I will block the center,aim as many pieces as I can to the queenside and try to break through there' that would be strategy.In other words,it's your game plan.
Tactics are the combinations,I do this then he does that,then I do this,then he must do that etc....Tactics is calculating concrete variations.
Positional play is what occurs when there are no immediate tactics.It's the quiet manoeuvring in closed positions.Both sides try to improve their position and create winning tactical chances.
That's the best I can explain it.I'm sure it's not completely correct,but I hope it helps you some.
Sir Lot.
Just to throw another wrinkle in, strategy and tactics work hand-in-hand. Tactics are a variety of short-term plans to effect a larger plan, or strategy.
Positional play, or a closed game, could be an example of a strategy a player wants to employ. He could put together a series of tactical manouvers designed to close down movement lanes on the board.
On the other hand, if you want to play an open game strategy, you may employ tactics that would lead to a number of quick, even exchanges that reduced the number of pieces on the board to give you more room.
If you can figure out your opponent's strategy for gameplay, you may be able to better determine the tactics they would employ in a given situation... for example, my personal strategy is to charge my pieces madly around the board until something happens... usually me losing. 😛
Strategy is your short or long term plan. Tactics are used to carry out that plan. There are way too many examples to list, so I'll give you just one:
White plays 1. c4. White's second move is 2. Nc3. So what the heck do those two moves do for white? C4 attacks the d5 square in blacks' side of the board and so does Nc3. C4 also gains white some space on his or her queenside and opens up a diagonal lane to let the white queen out. So white is directly attacking the d5 square and also gaining some control over the light squares in the center of the board (white's Knight on c3 also attacks and defends e4). White's plan is to continue to have control over d5 (a key central square) and continue to maintain control over the light squares. The rest of white's moves in the opening should revolve around and help implement that plan.
That's the plan or strategy. And all plans are subject to change at a moment's notice. :-)
Here's my 2 cents worth of advice though - learn tactics first. And spend a lot of time learning them. There are lots of great sites and books that can help you. All of them have been mentioned here in other threads.
At our level of chess tactics are gonna win and lose many more games than any long range plan ever will.
Originally posted by SirLoseALotAgree 100% with SirLoseALot's statement. Strategy equates to having a plan or a series of plans to achieve objectives (both major and minor), e.g. blockading the centre, putting your pieces on the best squares, use of space to maximise your mobility and restrict your opponents scope, utilising the minority attack to create weaknesses in the enemy camp etc. As mentioned before, its your game plan. Appreciating the value of pieces in certain situations, use of space, control of key squares. prophylaxis, creation of targets, etc amounts to strategy in chess.
I'm not too good at explaining this,but I'll give it a try.
Strategy is your long term plan,it's not about calculating concrete lines.For instance,when in a game you say to yourself: 'my kingside is secure,I will block the center,aim as many pieces as I can to the queenside and try to break through there' that would be strategy.In other words,it's ...[text shortened]... can explain it.I'm sure it's not completely correct,but I hope it helps you some.
Sir Lot.
Tactics are the variations/combinations used to achieve a definite or concrete objective, such as checkmate or winning material. The use of forks and pins and sacrifices amounts to tactics in chess. In order for (winning) tactical chances to appear, you must achieve a good position by employing an appropriate strategy.
Positional play is strategy at work. It is quiet, subtle moving of pieces in order to improve their location, opening/closing lines, applying pressure, and generally improving your position to create tactical opportunities. The opposite of positional play is tactical play where lots of tactics and sacrifices happen in order to checkmate the king or win major material. All chess games will have varying degrees of positional and tactical play, some more so than others.
I'll include example games that illustrate tactical and positional elements.
Game 557990
My strategy is to put my bishop on the long diagonal, and pawn storm the king position, forcing him to weaken his king position and his light squares, while i control the light squares around his king with my bishop. Trading off my knight over his light-square bishop guarantees a light-square advantage. Having achieved a nice position, move 23 was a tactical shot, threatening 24 Qf3 with immediate checkmate and his queen at the same time. He saved his queen for the while, but I pinned queen to king the very next move.
Game 512222
Not a very tactical game, my general strategy was to utilise my space advantage by controlling the opponents weak squares and restricting the scope of his pieces. With his pieces on useless squares, and his kingside pawns permanently fixed as targets, I proceed to attack them with my queen as they cannot be defended by their pieces.
Game 552497
The most tactical game. The general strategy in the Sicilian is for black to generate initiative on the queenside. By move 17, black has already achieved this as White played too passively and did not undertake anything on the kingside. The rest of the game was purely tactical as White lost 9 moves later. In order for White to defend against tactical threats, he would have had to lose a piece or two. 20 Bxe4 would have led to White getting his queen pinned to his king.
I hope I have explained these concepts clearly.
Originally posted by daanhlxStrategy is you want to sleep with your girlfriend's roommate; tactics is you drop by with a nice bottle of wine you know she likes when you know your girlfriend is out of town and say "Oh, x is out of town? I thought that was next week! Well you want to split this with me? It be a shame to waste it!" Positional play? Check the Kama Sutra!
What is meant with strategy in chess? And what are tactics? And what is positional play?
Oh in chess. How would I know? Have you seen some of my games!?
Originally posted by wibThanks for the recommendation. I'll include some more games which hopefully illustrate the use of strategy and tactics, and how they go hand in hand which each other.
That gets a rec Kyo! Nice post.
Game 529735
A good strategic game, the only mistake was me not protecting the kingpawn but my opponent didn't see it either. The general strategy in the king's indian is that white plays queenside and black goes kingside. When black decided to play on the queenside, I decided to fix his pawns, and apply pressure along the semi open file attacking his backward pawn. This involved tripling my major pieces and placing my knight in an excellent spot, causing all his pieces to be tied down in defense of his backward pawn. From then on, Black's queen never got into the game. His pieces really suffered lack of mobility as my pawns controlled key squares. The only thing he really did was shuffle his king back and forth. Once the queenside was shut down, I broke through on the kingside with my pawns and pieces. With blacks pieces still tied up in defense of just one pawn, and notice that black's queen cannot take part in defending the king, he resigned to avoid mate or loss of material. The main thing is that black's pieces had no where to go. Learn to restrict your opponents movement and scope. In this case, the strategy of completely immobilising my opponents pieces on the queenside led to a tactical opportunity on the kingside.
Game 585414
Another good strategic example with the Slav defense. White seemed to handle the opening without much purpose, which enabled me to get in 9...e5 with equality. As White's knights have been placed on the queenside with no meaningful scope, the strategy here is to force white to weaken his king position while at the same time improving my piece position. This was achieved by 13...b6! This threatens to win a pawn while at the same time improving my bishop scope which forces White to weaken his kingside and creating a big hole in the centre which can be exploited by my knights. 18...b5! was intended to drive the white knight back in order for my knights to jump into e4 and d3. With my knight unchallenged in the centre, my queen infiltrates the kingside, threatening the murderous 23...Ng3+ forking king, rook and queen. With White's queen shut out from attack or defense, and with other White pieces poorly placed, I proceed to open up attack lines to white's king with 25...g5! White resigned 3 moves later as he didn't see a tactical shot, which came from a good position built up by Black. The main thing is that White allowed too many weaknesses and allowed improper piece placement. Learn to create and exploit weaknesses in your opponents camp. In this case, patiently exploiting weak squares, a weak king position, and poor piece placement will ultimately lead to a decisive tactical shot.
Originally posted by KyoGee, Kyo where can I get the book of your greatest games? My ones of Alekhine and Fischer seem so outdated!
Game 585414
Another good strategic example with the Slav defense. White seemed to handle the opening without much purpose, which enabled me to get in 9...e5 with equality. As White's knights have been placed on the queenside with no meaningful scope, the strategy here is to force white to weaken his king position while at the same time improving my p ...[text shortened]... a weak king position, and poor piece placement will ultimately lead to a decisive tactical shot.
In my very weak defense regarding gameGame 585414, I was experimenting by playing a Queen Pawn Opening, something I hadn't tried in twenty years. So end of experiment back to e4 (not to say I haven't botched some of them too). Obviously, I played it very badly. For my records, though, could you please indicate which of your moves deserve !, which deserve !! and for which I should add the rare, but obviously well-merited !!!.
Seriously, before you post a game with your analysis of how brilliantly you played and what an idiot your opponent was, you might consider personal messaging the victim! Still, good game!
Thanks all for your answers! Those examples are really nice too, Kyo and Wib.
ChessAttourney, I would not call sleeping with your girlfriend's roommate strategy, because a strategy is something that you use to reach a certain goal, and sleeping with the roommate is a goal all by itself. ;-)
And don't be bothered by having a bad game mentioned here, they are public games aren't they?
So here is a really bad game by me: Game 271313.
Mate in eight! What a disgrace. Anyone taking aout his queen so early should not be spared, but I blundered, again and again!
And here a better one just to balance things out: Game 346426.
I had his king smothered! I never thought I would have an opportunity to apply a smothered mate when I saw this tactical thing on a CD-ROM. I don't think my opponent ever heard of it though, otherwise he would have traded his rook for my knight to avoid the mate.
It is sometimes hard to see where your peices should go. For instance, I can see that the knight is in an excellent position in Game 529735, however, I once read knights do much better in the center of the board than on the sides. So I am not likely to make up plan that involves a knight in such a position.
But what is prophylaxis? It sounds like some kind of medicine that helps you go to the toilet to me... ;-)
AOriginally posted by daanhlxGood point: I guess getting her alone under apparently benign circumstances would be the strategy, not acheiving the ultimate goal!
Thanks all for your answers!
ChessAttourney, I would not call sleeping with your girlfriend's roommate strategy, because a strategy is something that you use to reach a certain goal, and sleeping with the roommate is a goal all by itself. ;-)
And don't be bothered by having a bad game mentioned here, they are public games aren't they?
As for Kyo posting the game, I guess I object more to the tone of the post then the actual post itself. Someone who admittedly gave me a bad beating, but is still just rated in the low 1600's shouldn't be annotating his own games and giving himself exclamation points in the manner of Kasparov. An exclamation point for 13 ..... b6? It's about the most obvious move on the board, and it didn't "force me to weaken my king side"; I did that myself by my foolish 16 f4. Looking over the game it's still hard for me to understand why I would have deliberately played to move my f pawn to 3 to make sure a knight could not reach e4 and then six moves later move it again assuring that result! I guess that's an example of "positional play" but of how NOT to do something! The game is positionally lost by that move, although 27 Kg2 still avoids any immediate disaster. I may add that I should have moved b4 before my knight hit b3 (which was otherwise a decent operation that rid me of black's light squared bishop) and a simple Bd2 connecting the rooks would have been far superior to my useless 15th move or stupid 16th move. Oh well I've played a lot better and sometimes I've even played worse, but at this level it's a little irksome to have someone slightly higher rated speaking of "murderous" forks and handing himself kudos like extra jelly beans for a game he played well, though against poor play, like it was Game 1 of Capablanca-Alekhine, 1927!!