Positional Play

Positional play is dominated by long-term maneuvering for advantage rather than by short-term attacks and threats, and requiring judgment more than extensive calculation of variations, as distinguished from tactics. Some positional players who love to relishe slow improving moves like to keep the pawns and pieces neatly organized and hold off dynamic decisions but do not like messy positions as much. Positional players like to incrementally improve their position and only when they have spent enough time coordinating their pieces do they want to attack or take decisive action in some way. They tend to like positions of a more static nature, with no huge surprises lurking for many moves to come. They are not as comfortable basing their game off of something dynamic and temporary, like a developmental advantage, but would prefer to slowly and safely nurture something more stable and permanent, like an advantage in space, pawn structure, or material. This pretty much describes in terms of preferences. Any good chess player has to ignore their style as much as they can except concerning opening choices and be objective about what they should do in their particular position. Positional play moves to accumulate advantages in their position, such as more space controlled on the board, better pawn structure, greater control of the center and others. The purpose of this is to set things up so an attack against the enemy king can be successfully orchestrated, while thwarting your opponent's efforts to do the same. In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.