Are You A Tactical And Positional Master?

As everyone knows, there are books about tactics and books about positional skills. However, in serious chess, you often don’t know if either are useful or powerful. Perhaps you don’t see anything, then your moves melt into nothing but randomness.

Here are some interesting positions, but it’s up to you to figure out what’s going on. Thus, you might think that a tactic is the answer (or not!), or you might decide that both sides are playing solid positional chess.

I should mention that most are difficult, but a few are easier. Once again, the positions can be quiet or equal, while other positions might be dropping bombs. Try your best to solve all of them, and please, please, please look at the notes.

Position One

Black has castled while White has more central space. Which side is better? Also notice that Black’s knight is on a bad square, and Black’s g7-bishop is also blocked.

Position Two

Position Three

Position Four

Position Five

Position Six

It’s easy to think that White is going to get a kingside attack and that might freak Black out. However, the truth is that this is just a dream for White since White’s knight on a3 is very poorly placed. Yes, it seems that White’s best piece is White’s bishop, but Black can easily deal with it.

Position Seven

If you were Black, what kind of plan would you use?

Position Eight

Position Nine

White wants to play Rae1 when all of his pieces would be perfectly placed.

Position Ten