which players you find harder to face. Aggressive or Positional

I for one have never beaten this one guy who's lower rated than me but he carries out very strong attacks backed up by tactics like magice he's always aggressive.

Positional, if you can call anyone that at my level. On online chess any open game I normally find a way to win material. In closed games I often find it hard to formulate a plan.

In live chess it's less about any of that and more just avoiding falling for simple tactics, in blitz if I can avoid hanging pieces I'm doing well.

In my limited experience everybody who plays OTB often has that one 'Angstgegner' who they just can't seem to beat. I have one too. I consistently perform better than him and finish higher than him in tournaments, but in direct encounters I have been slaughtered all 4 times I've played him in a classical game.

Incidentally he's a very aggressive player. I don't think you can generalize that to 'all aggressive players' though... I have no trouble with any other very aggressive players. Maybe it's a psychological thing... 

Imma a Defensive and Positional Player.

That's logically, because if you play Defensively, you do Prophylaxis, if you do Prophylaxis, you get Positional Positions on the ChessBoard ( almost ) automatically. Also look for Sacrifices for both my Opponent and me.

My Weakness is not an Aggressive player.
I know how to Defend ( more or less ofcourse ).
My Weakness is also not a Positional Player as an Opponent; I am one myself.

A ( Major ) Weakness I have is Counter-attacking ( ZwischenZug ).
When I see a Threat my opponent can make, I always look for Defensive but not Passive moves first, while objectively speaking, Generally or always, finding a sound Counter-attacking move is better than Defending I have read from a Source.
Further on I have one time Ceased an attack where I shouldn't have Ceased... Stockfish Calculated an advantage around -32,xx if I put the Horse on a pro-intuitional Square; however, I retreated my Queen [-2,xx], like I saw Magnus Carslen do in a Game.
I couldn't calculate so far ahead with the Sacrifices ( which I Considered ) as Stockfish, so on that Turn I also had to listen to my Intuition and General knowledge.
It was a ' Risky ' move, with my Defensive Mindset. My Queen was under attack by the Knight of my Opponent and if it went wrong my Queen had to Unicely try to Defend my attacking Knight.

A good aggressive player would have definitely done better.


'' Patzer always Considers Checks ''

 

"Positional" and "Aggressive" are not mutually exclusive....why does everyone think they are. You can be a positional player and play aggressively too....

@ lava rook

could you give an example of a strong player or an opening that fits this style? I've thought about that idea before but could not come up with anything.

Anand comes to mind.

But the situation on the board is the most important regardless of your style, as Silman tries to coney in Reasess. Do what the position demands not what you want to do.

Edit: AcivilizedGentlemen basically said what I was triyng to say in a better way and beat me to it

@ acivilized gentleman:

I agree with you that every positional player has to be somewhat aggressive if they want to win. Along the same lines however, couldn't the king's gambit, the stereotypical agressive choice, be considered positional because it seeks to gain the initiative, development, control of an open file, and the center, all positional plusses?

Maybe better words would be dynamic and quiet players?

I find it really hard to face the ones who I blunder against...which is all of them. There's no easy games

And that is the most amusingly conceited thing I've read tonight :P

By 1500 you have some understanding of how to play chess, and more importantly, how you like to play chess. Do you think there's a difference between a positionally minded player saying so at 1500 and a tactically minded player saying that they are more tactical at 1500? The positional player's positional play will not be as good as a better player, and the tactical player's tactical ability will not be as good as a better player; that doesn't mean that they don't think and play in a positional manner.

We can't judge everyone by masters. When was the last time you saw someone going to a football match and shouting "dude, you f***ing suck! Messi (or Arshavin, seeing as you seem to be living in Russia) would never do that!"

Yes, endgames are huge tests of a players positional play, but your rating is 1900 on chess.com, where ratings are massively inflated. Do you have a rating in real life? Is it 2200+? If not you clearly don't understand positional play - by your logic - and thus should not be talking down to anyone for stating what kind of mindset they have when approaching a chess board.

Also, you said:

The kings gambit has you attacking before you're ahead in development, before your opponent has any weaknesses, with no real positional justification. This breaks the very simple rule of chess to never attack unless you're ahead in development. Furthermore, you're often supposed to provoke weaknesses before you attack unless you're significantly ahead in development. So no, the kings gambit is not positional in any sense.

The idea of the King's Gambit is quick, fluid development, THEN attack. No-one who knows how to play chess would begin an attack without justification. Look at the Muzio Gambit: white gets his queen, bishop and rook lined up against f7 before black has time to get anywhere near that level of development. As for it not being positional in any sense... also wrong. I play the King's Gambit a lot, and it can end up in positional battles depending on how your opponent reacts, particularly if s/he declines the gambit. It's absurd to claim or insinuate that every position arising from a particular opening is going to be of the same manner. I've had good success in the King's Gambit Declined playing f5 if black doesn't develop his light-squared bishop early, and thus it becomes locked in behind my nicely defended f-pawn, and so the positional crush ensues.

And before you question my rating, that f5 idea was a recommendation of a master, and in one of IM Andrew Martin's two videos on the King's Gambit, he gives good examples of how the opening can become quiet and positional, despite the white player's original, presumably violent intentions.

I'm not necessarily having a go at you, by the way; I just think what you said was grossly mistaken.

+1 ^^

If someone rants his a** off in response to your one- or twoline comment, you don't rant back. You laugh out loud.

Unless you were actually being serious, in which case the rant was kind of justified.

That's better :)

I am like a 2200 ELO player when it comes to endgames, but positionally im really weak.

I find positional games the toughest, maybe because I don't understand openings as much as others, and they know positional plays out of the opening they are trying to achieve. Or maybe because I like open games, and tactical positions better than closed or positional games.

Either way, I hate positional games, and I try my best not to get sucked into it.

It would be alot easier to help you with your question:  which player you find harder to face, Aggressive or Positional?  if you would post a game or two with this individual you mention in your post.

But, to start with I will assume that what you mean by aggressive is attacking/tactical player as opposed to a methodical positional player.

As a general observation attacking tactical players like start their attacks early in the opening stages of the game.  This usually requires that the attack be a flank attack (attack on the Kingside or the Queenside.)  Flank attacks are best thwarted (repelled, rebuffed, stopped) by counterattacking in the center.  The rule is if the center is open/fluid (not blocked by pawns and/or pieces), then the counterattack in the center will generally stop the flank attack in its tracks.  However, if the center is blocked then there is a very good chance that the flank attack will succeed.

So, to answer your question.  Because of what I know about aggressive (attacking/tactical) players and their early attacks having of necessity to be flank attacks.  I prefer to play the aggressive (attacking/tactical) player due to the inherent flaw in their plan (open/fluid center counter attack will cause a flank attack to fail. And, naturally I do not allow an aggressive opponent to block up the center early in the game.

If you would like to know more, please let me know.

*sigh*

The fact that you went into such detail over minor issues and contradicted the sentiments of your previous post (vis à vis the King's Gambit) indicates that your first post was poorly written, and on top of that you're incredibly conceited. First, you unprovokedly attacked someone earlier in the thread, and when I called you on it you did likewise to me.

I would be incredibly surprised if you weren't a better player than me, and wow aren't you great for putting effort into improving. You know, most of us just sit around and *wish* we were better, and don't ever *try* to improve >.<

I'm done being nice with you, and don't bother replying to this particular sentence because I already know that you care about little other than yourself. Challenge me on the basics of chess if you'd like; I'd like to think I have those down to some degree by now, and if not I'll be happy to learn, as I'm always trying to improve my game.

In future, if you don't want people misunderstanding your posts, I'd recommend putting some effort into getting your point across clearly. Think of it as an endgame. And Russian nobility? Haha! That really takes the cake.

Watch your Words, Gentleman.

Gizeh'ks Practitioner of the fine art of Warfare will Defend ( with arrogance ): Prove me that I haven't won 5 out of 5, and that I will Plausibly win the 6th one.

Wanna come-up with '' whaa, low Rated players ! '' ?
Than prove me that I can set my Game-search minimum Rating higher than my own Current Rating at all Times { it were indeed lower Rated players than my Natural rating. Chess.com's fault ofcourse.. the Responsible Staff, self-Explanatory }

'' When you attack Gizchehs, than ' the Practitioner ' will try to Defend, and die tries to wreak Havoc on you after. '' 

I don't think that I am a that Special late EndGame player; ( relatively ) played and still ( relatively ) play a lot against Engines and so I Resign almost always when my Position is Hopeless.
But I am a Strategist, not a Tactician, so I Welcome early Queen Exchanges always, provided that they don't give me any Positional Concession(s), and I don't lose ( an ) Advantage(s), ofcourse.
By the way, I don't like Simplified Positions so much.
I prefer Complicated Positional Positions with the fewest Tactics and the most Strategies, unsymmetrical, with the Queens off the Board.

At Classical Chess I like the MiddleGame the most, with exceptions.
At Chess 960 I like the opening the most, provided that it is not and not less Symmetrical.



As for

'' but then again, most patzers consider themselves positional players the second they ever employ the ruylopez so shrug ''



I Honestly don't know what ' Patzer ' means.
I 've got it from this source: 

http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Dan_sayings.html 



"Patzer sees a check - gives a check," but "Always (consider) a check, it might be mate."





I like the atmosphere that the Quote gives, Especially with a kind of turquoise. 



 

Gizchecs, that is the most synesthesic post I have ever seen, congratulations! I see that you are from the Netherlands; if you don't know the English word synesthesia, it's synesthesie in Dutch :)

I dont think it was silly in fact his argument had more strong points then yours and it seems like your just ranting so you can sound smart.

Thanks chessmaster. I still fail to understand these people who revert to aggression so quickly, or try to create an argument so that they can attempt to win it, which invariably they don't because aggressive individuals act more on impulse than on reason.

It's a shame; many of my favourite authors are Russian, my given name is actually Russian, and I've always had a strong interest in the Russian culture and language, but I know two Russian people and both of them assure me that most Russian people are horrible :/

One of them left and moved to Canada, and the other... well she still lives there, but she dislikes the majority of her countrymen. Dreams are dreams; in reality a lot of people are just [word is banned from chess.com]!