Attack or Defend?

I have been an attacker, and am always amazed when I, to quote Silman, "zip" through the games of Alekhine, Breyer, Kasparov, Tal, Shirov, and Morphy. I always feel like this: How do they know where to start? Like this:

So what about DEFENSE? Do people win by defense? We tend to think of Viktor Korchnoi and Ulf Anderssen as defenders who win, right?

Well, we must think of Steinitz now.

STEINITZ LAW

To win, you must attack. The defender will not win unless the attack was premature, or the attacker made a mistake.

Therefore, we must say counter attack instead of defend.

THE LAWS OF ATTACK

1. Make sure you opponent cannot counter attack.
2. If the center is blocked, then look the way the pawns point! That's the way you must attack. Whether the King is there or not.
3. If you have control of the center, then attacking can be one of your major options.
4. If your opponent can open the center, or gain control of the center, then concentrate on the center, not attack!
5. If you have an attack that doesn't follow the "rules", then it must be caculated very carefully.

Hope this sparks some intresting disscusion!

~Happy Chess~

Solved it in <5 seconds ;)

But I'm familiar with this puzzle so it doesn't really count

And of course you can win without an attack, you can positionally squeeze your opponent who as a consequence won't be able to keep from losing material.  After that the natural next step is a matting set up, but it's hardly an attack when there are hardly any defenders or counter attacking chances, more of a clean up operation

Of course that style isn't for everyone.  Alekhine has some brilliant games for sure.

Yes you can win by defense.ALthough you have to have a good plan and  strategy  for how long in the game you are gonna defend for.Look at the alekhine line e4 and Nf6 reply.White can attack and chess back the knight.But as black manouvres his pieces,the strategy is to defend here and at the same time undermining whites pawn structure.

So the idea is to always defend with a plan and dont defend all through the game regardless of the colour you are playing.This is the reason alot of some players even get bad results in games.As you defend,you look for weaknesses by your opponent and then counterattack.Even the great players of old mastered this and thats the reason they were successful.

Therefore yes people can win by  a well defense game plan strategy.

Positional squeeze is attack.

You cannot win by attack!! If you defend the whole game you won't ever checkmate the King!

Imagine this: You've been defending the whole game and eventually:

COUNTER ATTACK IS ATTACK!

Exactly! You must attack at a point! But draining the clock is not "real" chess. Play the board, not the clock.

If the attack is impossible, then the attack is premature.

Other Steinitz Law

When you have the advantage, you must attack! If you attack without the advantage, then that attack is doomed to fail.

Therefore, if you are defending against a premature attack, then at some point you will gain the advantage. The you MUST attack!

If you checkmate, you are attacking the opponents king! Then at some point, you must attack!!

BTW, attack is not a crazy Tal attack. Attack is just a term that means you are actively playing for something. That can be checkmate or a positional weakness.

I loose every game i play defensively, so thats why i choose smei aggressive openings, and i try to stay in the middlegame instead of heading to an endgame :P

See the text in red

I am a defensive player, and i find it works well against younger players.  Younger players are genrally less patient and will do pretty much anything to get the game going.  So i sit back and wait for them to over commit. 

This and going into endgames are two ways masters can easily crush a field of class players without even having to calculate

I know some  are heavy into opening theory and sharp attacks -- but if I ever make master this is more my style, play solid and wait for them to self destruct.

BTW this isn't so mysterious if you think of it as a deflection sac.   True, it looks fancy because it's the queen, but if all your other pieces are set up for the attack, the one that's not particularly useful can look for a deflection sac, it doesn't matter which piece it is.

Would I be happy to play this in a game?  Heck yeah, it's flashy and a forced win.  Just trying to answer your "how do they know where to start"  Obviously seeing and remembering patterns like this help.  Of course the most impressive part is setting it up, often the execution we puzzle over in tactic books the master had seen long since.

 Good points!  So many young players are so into playing tactics, attacking play, being agressive, and such.  I sit back andlet them do there thing and as you posted so well...self destruct.

Rh3 would also be enough. A bit less fancy, but also works in 3 moves

"2.If the center is blocked, then look the way the pawns point! That's the way you must attack. Whether the King is there or not."

I'm not sure about this. Yes it probably holds up ok as a general rule, but you can't get by on general rules in chess. There are definitely exceptions, mainly involving the opponent undermining the pawn chain with a well-timed break. An obvious one I can think of is in the French Defence where white's pawn chain is pointing towards the black king, and indeed sometimes white it able to work up play against black's kingside, but equally as possible is that black gets f6 in, opens the f-file, and can use this as a means to attack the white king, in combination with the e5 break once white's pawn there is gone, opening lines for queen and bishop etc.

 It is a general rule. My example is the King's Indian Defense. The French is... well, weird. You play defense, attack, counterattack, and all things at the same time.

The reason the "point" rule holds up is that you can "chop" at the bottom of the chain, and that will be the way your pawns point. Yes, black has two breaks in the King's Indian and the French. But play c6 in the Normal KID and you get killed. Play it in the French and time it well.

1.Defense is not attack, so that makes no sense to me. Could you please clarify?

2.You can't win a championship without winning games either.

Please, clarify.

The reason the point rule works, is that you have more space on that side. Secondly, the cramped player bad bishop will be stuck on the side that he has more space. Therefore, an attack on the kingside in the Classical French is hard, because you are a piece short. A queenside atttack, youi can find a use for that piece.