No matter how much theory progresses, how radically styles change, chess play is inconceivable without tactics.

Good players develop a tactical instinct, a sense of what is possible or likely and what is not worth calculating.

By playing slowly during the early phases of a game I am able to grasp the basic requirements of each position. Then, despite being in time pressure, I have no difficulty in finding the best continuation. Incidentally, it is an odd fact that more often than not it is my opponent who gets the jitters when I am compelled to make these hurried moves.

Tartakower once wrote that after planting a Knight in the center you can go to sleep. This is not to be taken literally, of course, but it contains more than a germ of truth.

Young players calculate everything, a requirement of their relative inexperience.

No matter how much theory progresses, how radically styles change, chess play is inconceivable without tactics.

We often hear the terms 'positional' and 'tactical' used as opposites. But this is as wrong as to consider a painting's composition unrelated to its subject. Just as there is no such thing as 'artistic' art, so there is no such thing as 'positional' chess.