Here's a general question for the stronger players out there, maybe some of y'all have gone through something similar or have some insight. This might sound a bit too rambly, but bear with me...
Sort of relates to goldaxe's problem of not knowing how to play simple positions. I've realized one of the biggest problems with my game is not knowing what to do in positions where there is no clear course of action. I worked hard on the dynamic/active part of my game and feel much more comfortable where there is a clear weakness to attack, or the opponent has an exposed king, or something like that. But in positions where there is no clear plan or line of play, I feel like I always end up randomly shuffling pieces. Or worse, I get lost and waste tons of the clock calculating endless variations because both myself and the opponent have several possible moves and replies because the position is still undefined.
I realize that's probably very general, so here's a position to illustrate my point. This position comes from Capablanca-Milner-Barry, 1936 (
full game link if anyone is interested to see how the game finished).
Here I really don't know exactly. b5/a5/a6 looks natural, maybe d4, perhaps there are more options?
My psyche is messed up right now
haha