Difference between Strategy and Positional play?

To make it even more complicated: good positional play is founded on small tactics. (Jussupow/Dvoretzky)

For example, recycling a piece to a better square by means of a small „trick“ (yet sound and safe), what‘s that?

Positional play, long-term strategy, tactics to gain positional bonus in order to follow a certain strategy?

Actually it really doesn’t matter: all that matters is good moves (RIP RJF)

Strategy is dynamic; positional is static.
Positional is the elements which are on the board: doubled pawns, bad piece, king safety, etc.
Strategic play is the plan--supposed to take advantage of positional elements.
Tactics is the "forced" play which takes advantage of positional weaknesses.

There's a hole on d5 is a positional element.
Get a knight to d5 is a plan.
Using the fact that Nf6 is pinned, I can play Nd5 without the knight being removes is a tactic.

@Sarg0n

Ironic quote used trying to calm down the quest for some truth fits well a nick.

I like that.

Semantics.

Can you play positionally without some kind of plan? Not really. Can you have long term plans without considering the position? Not really.

I think its worth noting some of the people mentioned (like Dvoretsky) aren't native English speakers and are trying to incorporate Russian ideas into the English language. Sometimes things don't translate exactly the same way.

@nonEsiste, you were asking me a couple days ago if a material advantage is positional. I was talking strictly about the number of pieces on the board and their point values. If you know that this is positional, please disregard anything I said.

BTW your question seems to be collecting some pretty interesting answers.

@Savage47

Partly semantics, without devaluation, partly not. Using positional features is no contradiction to strategy.

The excerpt from Aaagaard - Strategical Play here http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/StrategicPlay-excerpt.pdf is far from easy. Go to page 25 of the book (page 8 from the pdf) and through the game.

@JunoCunerino

Material imbalances are part of the elements of positional evaluation Lasker worked out of Steinitz's publications, if I have read this correctly. One of the material imbalances is a plus or minus in the sum of piece values.

@jupp53
Again, you have someone who was born in a non-English country speaking using a working definition of the word "strategy" to make a distinction between two ideas. I'm not saying he's right or wrong but when you start busting out definitions of words to prove a point (like the author did) that's the very definition of semantics.

The word "strategy" can have a lot of different meanings depending on context. If I take an average person, a chess player and a game theorist and ask for a definition of the word "strategy", I'm going to get three very different answers.

My only point was that is no universally understood difference between the two words in this specific context. An author might make a distinction between the two ideas to illustrate a point and that's fine they can do that. But, that doesn't mean everybody else is going to start changing how they use a word just because some Russian guy said so.

@Savage47

You're completly on the wrong track in one aspect. It doesn't matter what the english meaning of strategy is in this discussion. The word is an old one with an ancient tradition in many languages. If you rely to semantics you should at least discuss ancient greek meanings, which are far more important in this area mostly than any modern language. Here it is about the chess content.

Answering your last sentence in the same tone: What Dvoeretzki says interests more people in this context than the use of the word by some native english speakers without mastership in chess. And this is not only unpolite, it is wrong! It is an argument at personam when an argument ad rem should come.

@jupp53

You say its not semantics and your proof is a bunch of definitions and discussion of etymologies. ummm...what? You realize that's what semantics is right? I mean you are literally proving yourself wrong and not even realizing it.

As far the etymology of the word "strategy", Wictionary says: stratēgía, “office of general, command, generalship”) which only further proves my point. Modern uses of the word are very different from older uses and dependent on context.

Your last paragraph makes no sense to me. You essentially re-state what I said in different words and somehow conclude from that you're right and I'm wrong, "unpolite" and making an ad hominem attack. It sounds to me like you want to be right and don't really care what you're right about.

It's obvious you're not a native English speaker. My original point was that native speakers shouldn't try read too much into the way non-native speakers use specific words in a specific context. You're really not qualified to give a native speaker's perspective anymore than a man can speak from a woman's perspective or a white person can give a black person's perspective. It doesn't make it bad or wrong it's just that you can't give that perspective when you don't have it.

And for the record, "strategy" is not a greek word. Yes the English word derives from the same root but that doesn't make them the same word.

@Savage47 I am a chess player and a game theorists, and I use strategy with the same definition in both situations. Now an average person, one who uses a general dictionary to derive the meaning, and the main definition is still the same. The only problem you state is the one you created yourself.