Is It Good Or Bad To Trade Too Much? One aspect of my style in chess is that I like to trade a lot.

Is trading too much bad?
Trading for the sake of trading is bound to be in your opponent's favour more often than not.

Generally speaking, recapturing often activates the piece that can capture back. Consider two rooks on an open file, both protected by another, pretty passive rook on the a-file. The side that trades loses control of the open file and is stuck with the a-file rook, but the sides that recaptures gets to move his previously passive rook from the a-file to the open file.

Also, if you delay trading, you keep options open. As long as you still have several options, the opponent has to keep defences up against all of them, but as soon as you actually choose one (make the trade), that releases tension and usually frees up the game of the opponent a bit. Don't release tension without a reason.

Worst, if the opponent knows that you like to trade, he may offer trades that work in his favour positionally, and you'll go for them. That will get you a bad position very quickly.

A trade is a way to change the nature of the position. Only go for trades that change the position in your favour, otherwise keeping the opponent guessing is better.