How can I improve positional chess? I keep losing because I get myself into a bad position

@ohcomeon_1 said in #14:

There was a broken link in @PTX187 post: www.you.ube.com/playlist?list=PL9RQPxG_e-LkKfDgKp5AVNcW5cppg-7ZW

I just asked not to post broken links.

I wanted to provide a link, but in a way that the forum engine wouldn't insert the video into the post. To do this, slightly distorted the link: www.you.ube.com - dot instead of t.
I don't understand why it turned into a hyperlink.

@spectraltheory said in #1:

I don't think my problem is tactical chess, as my puzzle rating here is around 1700.

Your problem is that you don't play rated classical games. Probably you don't analyze your games too. Puzzles alone will not make your rating go up.

But my chess game ELO is just around 900.

This is blitz rating. You should play classical or rapid first.

And what I've observed, is that (when I'm not blundering my queen), I keep losing because I simply get myself into a bad position. So basically I'm quite OK with getting the right move once I'm in a winning position, but I'm terrible if it comes down to getting into the right position in the first place.

Yes you blunder your queen and it happens too often.

So in short, I should improve in positional chess. But how? Are there any puzzles for this?

You haven't played a classical game in 8 months! If you don't think deeply before each move you will not play better.
You need to play slow games and analyse them afterwards.

Also, are there any "reverse-tactics" puzzles, where you simply have to recognize your opponent's plan and try to prevent it from happening?

I don't think so. Just analyse the game.

@pointlesswindows said in #32:

Your problem is that you don't play rated classical games. Probably you don't analyze your games too. Puzzles alone will not make your rating go up.

This is blitz rating. You should play classical or rapid first.

Yes you blunder your queen and it happens too often.

You haven't played a classical game in 8 months! If you don't think deeply before each move you will not play better.
You need to play slow games and analyse them afterwards.

I don't think so. Just analyse the game.

How do I analyze my games in the proper way? Is there a tutorial for that? I ask because usually I go through every single mistake which can last for a couple of hours,especially since I don't understand every mistake and have to ask somewhere else for help

@spectraltheory said in #30:

I honestly don't see how my problem is tactics. As I said, if I don't happen to
blunder a piece, my mistakes - according to the engine - happen at the late
opening/early midgame, basically when you are done developing your pieces.
I simply don't know what to do next, and I usually make a mistake despite this
mistake not blundering any of my pieces. So it's a positional problem, right?
Almost any amateur is likely to have both tactical and positional problems. One can understandably want to improve one's positional ability, but the results can be inhibited if one completely neglects attempted tactical improvement. Also, much positional instruction is based on the assumption that one is playing slow games where it is practical to attempt to apply the ideas.

@spectraltheory said in #33:

How do I analyze my games in the proper
way? Is there a tutorial for that? ...
Maybe, this article would be helpful:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627023809/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman50.pdf

Now I played a 30 min classical game, still lost it due to the same mistakes. I took my time to think through that

During the ~9 seconds that you thought after 3...f5, did you consider how you would have reacted if Rolauten had replied to 4 exf5 with 4...e4 ? (The machine thinks that 4 d3 or even 4 d4 would have been a lot better than 4 exf5.)
After 4 exf5 d5 5 Bb5 e4, did you consider the problems that Rolauten would have had after 6 Ne5 ?
During the ~4 seconds that you thought after 6 Bxc6+ bxc6 7 Ne5 Qd6, did you consider 8 Qh5+ ?
After 8 d4 Bxf5, 9 Qh5+ doesn’t accomplish much does it? Did you consider 9 O-O ?

People have given good advice here. I would add that it might be a matter of discipline. In longer games you have time to follow 'beginners' advice:

1. Consider what your opponent's last move changed in the position.

2. What are they threatening?

3. Then look at checks.

4. Look at captures.

5. Look at making your own threats.

6. After running through that checklist on each move, then you can start to think positionally. As someone else alluded, positional play is stuff that happens when there's no tactics.

7. Do a blunder check before committing your move.

I'll confess that I struggle to follow my own advice. But I do think a list like this helps at the level you and I play at.

@spectraltheory said in #36:

... Now I played a 30 min classical game, still lost it due to
the same mistakes. I took my time to think through that
httpscolon//lichess.org/FQfZFcX8
After 9 Qh5+ g6 10 Qd1 c5, 11 g4 wasn't giving much attention to king-safety or the activity of the pieces on a1, b1, c1, d1, and h1.
After 11 g4 Be6 12 Nc3 Bg7, 13 h4 was still leaving pieces inactive and doing nothing about the coming danger to the two knights after 13...cxd4.
14 f4 worsened king safety while leaving a knight to its fate.
There is room for tactical improvement (13 h4?), improvement that might come from some Chernev-reading (9 Qh5+?), and improvement that might come from better use of time (8 d4?).

@spectraltheory said in #36:

A couple of thoughts on that game. First up, you did some okay stuff, so if I now proceed to list a bunch of things that are wrong then don't be too downhearted!

Secondly, I think the big problem was still basically tactical. Around move ten, your position isn't great but it's probably survivable, then the opponent wins a knight after which you're fairly stuffed. So I guess there's a general thing there of "calculate more, particularly checks, captures and threats" and a specific thing of learning to keep an eye out for this sort of idea where a piece is just about defended enough but one of its defenders is also under threat.

Thirdly, a semi-positional idea - it feels like a couple of times you make random threats that don't actually achieve anything - 9 Qh5+ is literally just wasting a move when your opponent blocks it and it has to move back, 11 g4 forces the bishop to move, but it can move to a square that's no worse than where it started so you haven't gained anything and you've weakened your king's side. It's worth remembering that attacking something isn't, in itself useful - it's only good if it forces the opponent to make a concession to defend the threat, or if it gains you a tempo on a move that you wanted to play anyway. A piece of general advice that might help here is that a couple of good things to consider doing if you can't see anything to do are i) improve the position of your worst-placed piece (so here, develop the queen's side minor pieces) and ii) think about what your opponent is trying to do and try to stop them (so here, try to stop them piling up on the central knight).

Maybe I'm way off beam, but I hope some of that is helpful...