Learning to attack.

Submitted by easyb on Wed, 11/26/2008 at 1:57am.

I have been concentrating a lot of my study on attacking lately, and one thing I have learned is many an effective attack arises from what appears to be a questionable move, but leads to a very nice gain in either position or material. For example(from one of my live games):

I have learned, mostly from using tools like the Tactics Trainer and Chess Mentor here on chess.com, that an effective attack usually comes not only from a not-so-obvious move, but more importantly, and aggressive style of play. I have been trying to incorporate this aggressiveness into my play, because it was severely lacking.

When I first started out I was so worried about hanging a piece or messing up my opening that, before I knew it, my opponent would start an attack and I would be scrambling the rest of the game trying to stay equal, and hope he/she makes a mistake. No more. I still pay attention to those things, of course, but now I am looking for any opportunity to start an attack of my own, in the hopes that my opponent will be the one scrambling to defend.

And it's much more fun to be on the attack than on the defense anyway.

» posted in easyb's Blog

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Comments:

by Marvin_Solis - 42 days ago
Kabacan, North Cotabato Philippines

Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 33

.,.

for me, Defending against violent attack is a master piece..

"I'm a Black piece lover.."

by niaz - 43 days ago
pakistan Pakistan

Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 11

great

by easyb - 43 days ago
Greenville, SC United States

Member Since: Sep 2008
Member Points: 305

Thank you Laoscala, and everyone else, for the input!

by Laoscala - 43 days ago
Melbourne Australia

Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 56

Continual albeit incremental use of force is detrimental to long-term strategy.

I.e. At some stage you must hand back Strategy. E.g. Castling is permitted here or the movement of a piece in a rather “unforceful” or “non-committed” manner. This does not mean to say however that the move will necessarily be unplanned. But you should not panic if it is not.

In any case, the explanation of this principle is rather like explaining a fight in that after the surprise element has been all but used up by the opponent who took the initiative in the first place, any further employment of force may result in the other competitor not having to guess what will take place next and hence be prepared for the use of force. In Chess, this happens when the first opponents developmental combinations have all been used up for the time being…i.e. the first opponent has run out of developmental/forceful/advancing combinations due to more rapid development in previous stages of the game. Considering that combinations are like the fuel in a car in a race, it seems that the first opponent then may need a Pit-Stop before continuing to advance. Otherwise he will run out of fuel – or in the case of a fight, his opponent will easily see his punch (move) coming and may quite easily step out of the way and use his own weight to throw him to the ground…much like in Chess. You see you can’t make up for Strategy that is not available to you. Once Used, it remains used.

A way around this may be to feign strategy in moving a piece which has little impact on remaining strategy/combinations, rather like a sucker punch in a fight. Another way to describe what is going on is a bit like saying to your opponent, well you’ve experienced my impact on the fight/battle…now let’s see what you’ve got. This may in fact be important because ultimately you have to know what you’re up against…i.e. you have to know what his next move is, what he will do next so you will know how to respond or RE-act…after you’ve softened him up (hopefully). Alternatively if you don’t heed this advice, your opponent may adapt to your tactics.

On the other hand, when I began learning to attack rather than simply hanging on I would have to say I was playing I was playing one of my early games..so well done.