Positional Puzzles

I think it's a pity that you can rarely find positional puzzles (as opposed to tactical puzzles). Please, if you have some positional ones post them here.

I'll start.

Hmm not bad, interesting puzzles. I think the problem with positional puzzles is that they are rarely ever forceful and almost always subjective so there is not always necessarily a best response.

Positional play is basically when you can't prove that a move is the best available but you believe that it is the best based on aproximate rules and gut feeling. Thus a positional puzzle is about guessing a move based on an array of aproximate rules.

A big promlem with positional puzzles as puzzles is that they depend on the solver knowing the correct aproximation rules, thus they easily end up being easy if you know the rules and impossible if you don't.

ok?

 Which is fine with me. This means that they teach correct aproximation rules + to see them quickly.

i think those are great!

There needs to be a balance.  Positional chess is good, but why settle for a good knight if you have a win?  (f5).

I think this is a great idea.  I think a better name should be "exploit the imbalance." instead of positional puzzle.  I believe the strongest positional move in the first puzzle is f5. (not Nd2?)

After getting the Knight to d6...its good but f5 exploits another positional weakness (a weak Queen!/ A rook on a8 that is blocked out of the action/ and a bad bishop/ and it opens up a file for your rook on the F-file.)

I agree that position is subjective, but there are some imbalances that should stand out immediately (i.e. open files, a home for the knight on the 5th or 6th rank free from pawn attacks.  My first instinct in the first puzzles was to to see the weak backwards pawn of mine on f4 and to see if stopping the king from castling would be worth anything.

In the famous words of of Lasker,

"When you see a good move . . . wait . . . look for another one."

Let's walk through the lines

1. f5 exf5?

2. e6! (winning a bishop or getting Qxg7 after black plays d6 driving the king to e7)

or

1. f5 0-0

2. fxe6! d5

3 e.p exd6

4. Bxe6 a3 (with a passed pawn on the sixth rank)

or

1. f5 d5??

2. exd6 (hitting g7 and attacking the bishop with d7 if castling) (Bd7 is bad after fxe6)

As the others pointed out, such puzzles would be a great addition to this site, but how to deal with multiple plans and multiple good moves in a position? That's why the approach used in tactics trainer cannot be applied here. 

@ politicalmusic f5 and Nd2 are both very strong. To me f5 feels like more of a tactical solution: lines are calculated and the outcomes seem favorable... whereas Nd2 is classic postional thinking: Let me improve a piece, oh look there's a strong outpost for my N, let me manuver to it. 

Here's a pure postional brilliancy from John Emms' "More Simple Chess" ... Emms loves postional chess and is just wild for the play given below... Not only is this game in "More Simple Chess" but Emms has the first move in the position below in his "The Most Amazing Chess Moves of All Time!" but there's no flashy combination -- just some brave, original and yet logical thinking.

Here's Emms introduction to the position:

"Let's examine the position as a whole from Black's point of view. the knight has a wonderful outpost on d5 and the queen is also well centralised on d3, where it patrols many squares and ties White's rook to the back rank. the only piece not pulling its weight at the moment is the rook on d8, which is pretty much dominated by White's queen and bishop. If Black were able to activate this piece, then his postional advantages (stronger minor piece, better sturcture and light-squared dominance) would become decisive.

Only a player of Julian Hodgson's imagination could come up with such a profound solution to Black's problem..."

I have problem with positional puzzles

If anyone is interested in developing positional understanding and solving so called positional puzzles I really recommend course Roots of Positional Understanding by IM Jeremy Silman. It's in Chess Mentor, it's very long and it's very awsome! (And it's rather advanced in my opinion.)

i can only say thank you very much for these awsome puzzles

Yeah, it's a pretty neat move. I think stronger players appreciate the originality of the play -- and the quality of the positional appraisal to be able to see that the idea is workable and strong.  (I like John Emms's chess writing very much btw.)

Now will someone please explain to me what the heck I meant in my annotation to the 12th move in Oll v Hodgson? It makes NO sense! axb4? Whaaa?

I have solved all three puzzles. What can it indicate about my positional understanding?

Positional chess is making moves that strengthen your position and moves that devalue your opponents it's not guessing 

F5 is such a better move. If Exf5 then E6 and id qe7 then f6 followed by nd2

It is a better choice but the puzzle is unreal since the poster forgot to tick the "castling enabled" boxes. Obviously black is completely lost if he can't hide his king somewhere!

There's plenty of positions where an only-move is positional, rather than tactical. Such as a key pawn break to activate pieces or a positional sacrifice. Plenty of times in my games there's been a critical central pawn push or a moment where you have to get a knight to a certain square in order to retain an advantage

Positional puzzles are more ambiguous, but there's obviously gonna be times where there's only one objective solution that is findable, and it's really helpful because it teaches you how to evaluate positions and also consider your opponents plans. It's an interesting concept for sure