Balance Between Strategy & Tactics
Dear Chess Friends!
I've just participated in the Titled Tuesday and I wanted to share one of my games from that tournament. I also have some thoughts regarding how tactics can be coordinated with strategy.
According to my experience, everytime when I positional advantage and the position becomes sharp, all tactics that appear favor me.
What do I want to say is that in order to succeed with tactics, you have to have a better position and no or just a few drawbacks that your opponent can exploit. Here you can argue saying that very often one may save a position by a tactical strike or even turn the game around and get a winning position. Yes, it happens often and in my tournament practice too, but, in my opinion, it typically happens when your opponent's position consists of some drawbacks and he/she is letting you to take advantage of tactical motifs appearing.
The ideal scenario of a chess game looks approximately like this:
- You properly play a sound opening and get approximately equal or slightly better position
- You initiate a proper plan which is common for that type of the position that you get after playing the opening stage of the game
- Because you do a proper plan, but your opponent misunderstands the position, your position becomes better.
- You coordinate your pieces and try to take advantage of enemy weaknesses.
- A tactical motif (or several motifs) appear and you prepare (or just calculate) a tactical strike.
- A successfully executed tactical strike provides you with a material (or just permanent) advantage
- Your opponent resigns or you realize this advantage in the endgame
Let me illustrate this concept with my recent game. I was playing against a strong FIDE Master from the US. First we'll focus on critical moments, and then you can go through the whole game annotated. It was French Defense: Steinitz Variation
Everything is played according to the book. White should attack on the kingside and play f4-f5 supported by the g-pawn or without any support.
Black initiated several exchanges on d4, which is an inaccuracy, instead it could make sense to add pressure to the d4-square.
I castled and initiated a proper plan - f4-f5 to ruin the Black's position on the kingside. Because I did everything properly before that and my opponent misunderstood the position and made an inaccuracy exchanging on d4.
It seems that Black initiated a tactical strike and now Black is able to win material. Yes, that's right, tactical motifs here exist, but the Black's position already contains a lot of drawbacks, that's why tactics don't favor them here and capturing that rook on a1 was actually a mistake!
Black has extra rook, but problems with the king. Castling seems natural, but only makes the king weak.
This bishop sacrifice wasn't the best move, but I tried to expose the king even more. It was absolutely unnecessary, but still worked.
I have only a few pieces, but they are well-coordinated. That's why, I'm likely to succeed with this attack.
The final resource which allows me to bring the e5-pawn to the attack. Otherwise, I capture the g6-pawn and deliver a ladder mate.
The final position, Black moved the king, I promoted a pawn to gain the queen on c7. So my tactical strike with f4-f5, c2-c3 and Qf2 attacking through the f-file was successful. Of course, Black could play better, but even he did, his position would be losing anyway.
Please, share your thoughts regarding balance between Strategy & Tactics and how it works. If you want to improve your chess performance and find or create similar tactical strikes in your own games, join my group lessons. More details - in our Chesslance Club.
The entire game!
Any comments or suggestions are welcome! If you want to share your "ideal" games, please, insert them into the comment section.
Best Regards,
FM Viktor Neustroev
