In one of our last articles, we were giving you some practical advice on how to play in worse/ losing positions. Today we are going to talk about a perhaps even more difficult situation – positions where you are much better or even winning. We say more difficult because it is when most mistakes happen and the position can suddenly turn around and we find ourselves on the difficult side. Many players tend to relax when they feel like they are winning and a moment of loss of concentration can prove very dangerous. The influence of a bad move in a winning position is most of all psychological; many players are not able to get over the fact that they have gone from a completely winning position to one that is only slightly better or even equal and they quickly collapse as a result.
With the advance of the technology and the improvement of the chess engines, more and more chess players have started to focus a lot on the opening and slightly disregard the other phases of the game, especially the endgame. While knowing your theory well is very important, you should find the right balance in your preparation as to include everything, from strategy to tactics to learning how to manage the theoretical endgames. One particular endgame that has been seen a lot in practice and has proved to be quite tricky even for the top players is the rook and bishop versus rook.
Every player has a different style of play and types of positions he/she likes or manages better.
From our own and our students’ experience, most amateur players like to attack and they usually try to start an attack in every game they play.
While there’s nothing wrong with having an aggressive style, not every type of position is suitable for such play.
Before starting an attack it is important to assess the position and pay attention to a few details that usually tell you should handle it.
In a game of chess, we are usually confronted with many critical moments where we need to find the right plan to getting or even maintaining an advantage. It is very comfortable to play when we find the right answer in such situations or our opponent simply makes a mistake that we are able to take advantage of. However, things don’t always go our way and even the slightest misunderstanding of the position can put us in an uncomfortable place.
Attacking chess and the tactical combinations are perhaps some of the most important topics a club player should learn. There are plenty of resources available to improve, from tactics trainers to books and video courses.
Nevertheless, it seems like club players cannot get enough of it and always strive to improve further. And that’s understandable because tactics on under 2000-2200 level decide most of the games.
