tactical/positional player?

how can someone decide whether that person is a tactical or positional player?

i recently lost a game i had a huge positional advantage in , because i lacked a sufficient plan to attack.

does it mean i should avoid positional games?

Positional player needs more patience and the ability to evaluate a position takes a lot of experience. Karpov is one such player who even outmatched Garry Kasparov for years. Usually a quick attempt to convert advantages to win throws the whole point away. This is much more common among beginners. But now and then you see top GMs rush for win gives them that bitter taste of draw or even loss of a winning game. Probably time pressure has a lot with losing patience. After all time is factor and your second opponent is the clock and you have to be constantly wary of time which pushes you toward impulsive moves. BTW what was the time control of the game that you lost and how long have you been playing? Bullet and blitz are number one enemies of positional understanding.

Its not whether you are one or the other
You can be tactical at times and positional at other times

Positional play is easy. Just follow some rules like "Develop your pieces", "Develop towards the centre", "Bishops on secure squares that command open diagonals and rooks on open files", "King safety is important but in an endgame king activity will also be important" etc.

What chess makes difficult is the tactical play because calculating moves is really demanding for our brain.

You shall impose one very simple test to know the ones who play tactical or positional positions: 1.e4 or 1.d4/Nf3/c4/f4?

@Autofill said in #3:

Its not whether you are one or the other
You can be tactical at times and positional at other times

I absolutely agree with you! We as players need to play to the demands of the positions. Indeed, we can choose openings that derive relatively more tactical or positional middlegame.

@WassimBerbar said in #5:

You shall impose one very simple test to know the ones who play tactical or positional positions: 1.e4 or 1.d4/Nf3/c4/f4?

It is generally true though tactical positions can arrive from 1.d4/nf3/c4 (a sharp and dynamic dutch) and positional games can arrive from 1.e4 (e.g. slow italian)

@Meriten said in #4:

Positional play is easy. Just follow some rules like "Develop your pieces", "Develop towards the centre", "Bishops on secure squares that command open diagonals and rooks on open files", "King safety is important but in an endgame king activity will also be important" etc.

What chess makes difficult is the tactical play because calculating moves is really demanding for our brain.

If you think positional play is easy and you can easily match kramnik or karpov's or any grandmaster's ability in positional play, then yeah... I think I have said enough. I don't see any logical rationale behind your opinion except for some superficial stereotype of chess

@blundererxd said in #6:

It is generally true though tactical positions can arrive from 1.d4/nf3/c4 (a sharp and dynamic dutch) and positional games can arrive from 1.e4 (e.g. slow italian)

This is the metric I chose for my openings. If you go to my own opening explorer, you'll see very rare positional positions, because my brain likes positions with a king to mate, an attack to launch, with an objective for my pieces, not just developing my pieces boringly and methodically. Most of the openings I choose guarantee a degree of tactical awareness. A quote by Savielly Tartakower:

“Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.”

@WassimBerbar said in #7:

This is the metric I chose for my openings. If you go to my own opening explorer, you'll see very rare positional positions, because my brain likes positions with a king to mate, an attack to launch, with an objective for my pieces, not just developing my pieces boringly and methodically. Most of the openings I choose guarantee a degree of tactical awareness. A quote by Savielly Tartakower:

“Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.”

That I think is perfect! Playing to your strength!