It just seems common sense to me to work on all aspects of your game.
Surely working on positional chess and tactics is better than working on
just tactics?

If you love the game, you want to delve deeper into its mysteries, and I
think you will naturally want to look at all aspects of the game.

I think the two are interrelated, its like walking, take a step forward with
your left (positional) foot and you move forward and it enables you to go
even further with your right (tactical) foot, which then means you need to
move forward with your left foot again.

I remember one of my early attempts to play positionally... I was trying to
get a knight into a strong outpost in the centre for about 20 moves but my
opponent stopped all my attempts, so I set up a two move cheapo (rook to d1
so when we swap off in the centre he can't recapture or its rook takes
queen). He fell for this two move cheapo so and not only did I get my knight
to the outpost, but I won a pawn into the bargain. LOL

So this is one example of tactics getting me a postional advantage as you
say can happen but I think postional play is more likely to get you a
postional advantage.

"Ron" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Neil Coward" wrote:

I think your tactical ability has to rest on your positional ability.
Positional ability gets you there, tactics finish it off.
With just tactics you are just a wildcat, a cheapo merchant, a coffee
house
player,
a card sharp with a few aces hidden up your sleeve.

For instance we've all seen master games where some great master piles
on
the pressure for move after move after move then suddenly its a
sacrifice
and a mate!

I don't know. In my opinion, not only are strong tactics required to
finish off a positional advantage, but they're often how you get them.
You find ways to threaten things, which your opponent has to make
positional concessions to meet. Opponent's don't just give you a
positional advantage.

Dan Heisman has a column at Chesscafe about testing your tactical skill,
with an emphasis on seeing things quickly. It was an eye-opener for me
and I suspect it will be for a lot of players.