Style

[MJMcCready]

Why do players sometimes change the way they play chess and their style at club level? Is it because they got bored of it and fancy something else because they aren't getting anywhere? It's usually the case that most don't make too many changes to how they play as they are usually happy enough with it right? I have recently learnt that to do this means you must pay much more attention to your games and apply yourself much more than usual to work out what you are getting right and what you are not. Normally its more like some players want to become better at spotting tactics or become more positional, so the changes are are only slight. Most don't usually completely change how they play from for example defensive to super aggressive right? That would be normally thought of as too much I would imagine?

[Roger de Coverly]

Why do players sometimes change the way they play chess and their style at club level? Is it because they got bored of it and fancy something else because they aren't getting anywhere?

Poor results is a reason although in my mind that correlates more with types of position rather than style of play. Also adjusting the style of play can help with difficult opponents, provided you get it right of course.

Against nominally weaker opponents should you take the risk of going all out for attack or rely on them self destructing? So if facing on opponent favouring the Dragon, do you go all out with the Fischer plan, open the h file, sac, sac, mate? Perhaps it would be less risky to provoke them to misplay a calmer anti-Sicilian?

[Neil_Hickman]

Why do players sometimes change the way they play chess and their style at club level?
Most don't usually completely change how they play from for example defensive to super aggressive right? That would be normally thought of as too much I would imagine?

When I was in my teens, I used to play the King’s Gambit, basically because the opponents I encountered in Birmingham junior chess didn’t like being violently attacked. As I got older I realised that I wasn’t tactically all that strong but was fairly good in the endgame, so I adapted the way I played. I still have affection for the KG and give it an occasional outing, usually with disappointing results, though I won a nice league game with the Muzio a few years ago.
Nick Faulks was a contemporary of mine and as a junior was, I recall, a great Petrosian fan. Years later, playing in Olympiads, he was using the King’s Gambit. His explanation, as I recall, was simply that “he wanted to have fun”.

[MJMcCready]

Yes, I take your point. I decided to play sacrificial chess nearly all month last month just for the fun of it. A good laugh but not entirely helpful if improvement is what you are interested in. Thankfully I am not, so it didn't matter, and in fact I'd much rather keep it that way as its more enjoyable. I don't play competitively anymore, so results aren't important.

[NickFaulks]

Nick Faulks was a contemporary of mine and as a junior was, I recall, a great Petrosian fan.

I think it is fair to say that I found more of interest in Petrosian's games than he would have found in mine.

[Neil_Hickman]

if improvement is what you are interested in. Thankfully I am not

As I creak through my eighth decade, I think the limit of my ambitions is now to avoid leaking rating points quite as profligately as I have done at some times in the past.
When they rebased the old grading system a while back, I managed to have such a bad season that my grade in new money, supposedly increased by 10 or 15, was about the same as my former grade in old money.
Entering the Norfolk Championship was a mistake I shan’t repeat, too

[IM Jack Rudd]

I've tried to change my style over the past decade or so. But styles are tricky beasts, and don't always want to be changed.

[MJMcCready]

Most club players, myself included, lack the expertise to pull it off effectively enough.

[Francis Fields]

The word style is less applicable than - why do you play that?

[Stephen Westmoreland]

To play less complex styles that I do not understand basically. After learning to put down that opening book promising glory.

[Paul Cooksey]

Kotov said style only applied to masters (I think it was him from memory, I haven't checked). At lower levels a person who keeps queens on, because they only win by attacking the king, or takes queens off, because they only win in endings, can't be said to have style just weaknesses.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. But I suspect evolutions in style are related to changes in playing capabilities. I mostly gave up the Sicilian in my thirties for the Caro-Kann, My main motivation was not to change style. It was that it was a lot of work being prepared for the open Sicilian which white rarely played. But you play different positions, you develop different skills, your style changes.

[Steven DuCharme]

To Fianchetto or not? That is the query