A Beginner's Guide to Tactics

Hello beginners, have you ever felt like no matter how much you practiced, little improvement followed? Or maybe you are struggling to find the puzzle’s true meaning, and can’t seem to find the right moves to a puzzle? In this guide, I will provide a solution to some of the most frequent problems seen in beginners and hopefully, this article will not only improve your ability to solve puzzles, it will also improve your pattern recognition, chess vocabulary, board visualization, and much, much more! 

When I first started chess, I had a knack for puzzles. Most of my time playing chess was spent grinding puzzles on Chesskid. However, there was one major problem. In the first few months, my rating was stagnant, with little signs of improvement. However when I view those days of the past I now understand what I was doing wrong, and I hope I can translate those feelings into words so that you won’t have to go through all the wasted time and effort I put into improving. So let’s take a look at some of the mistakes I made on the road to improvement. 

Error #1: Impulsive Thinking

This is one of the many errors I committed while solving puzzles. I would see a hanging knight, capture it, and to my astonishment, my solution was incorrect. I had missed a mate in 2. In order to avoid that kind of scenario from happening to you, a couple of things must be mastered. First and foremost, always double check your move. For example, take this position below. 

In this position, your original reaction might be to defend your bishop, since it is hanging. However, you have to take into account the entirety of the position in order to truly understand the puzzle. Once you realize that white has a powerful battery aligned on the d-file and that black has a weak back rank, the pieces all line into place, and you have solved the puzzle! The same thing applies to forced mates. In general, all the moves in tactics rated under 2000 will be forced. That is why it is imperative that you consider all possible checks. Spending over 5 minutes to correctly solve a puzzle is better than instantly playing a move hoping that it is correct.

Error #2: Excessive Practice 

Contrary to popular belief, more practice doesn’t necessarily mean better results. Just like any activity, your brain needs time to revamp and recover from the information it takes in. Just as the famous Bruce Lee once said, “​​I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” This quote describes how you should manage your training time. Don’t quickly rush over the puzzle and move on to the next one. Instead, take your time to understand the puzzle you’ve encountered, and make sure to analyze it afterward to grasp its true meaning. Take a little kid learning how to read. The first step is to learn the alphabet. After that, they learn how to pronounce the letters, so the first time they see the word “can” they know how to sound it out. The more time they spend on the word “can”, the more and more the brain associates that word with its sound, and soon enough the child is able to say the word without a second thought. Now compare this child to one who spent the same amount of time learning but instead of putting in 1,000 minutes to master 1 word, he spends 1,000 minutes learning 1,000 words. Which child is more likely to learn larger words like “cantaloupe” or “cannonball”? These short words or, “building blocks” are the key to success. In the same way, learning how the pieces move can be compared to learning the letters of the alphabet. One move tactics are words like “cat” and “man”. Finally, think of longer combinations as those difficult words you get on a spelling exam in high school. Spending a significant amount of time on 3-5 puzzles every day doesn’t sound like much, but as time goes on, those numbers really start to add up, and your brain stores all the information that it takes in. However, in order to benefit from this form of practice, you must train your brain on a consistent basis. Refrain from taking weeks off your practice as this can lead to the brain forgetting the patterns that you’ve just learned. You should also spend no more than 5 minutes solving each puzzle. After you solve the puzzle, even if you got it right, look at the solution. To put into picture the instructions I am giving I have set up the position below. 

In this position, white’s queen is staring down at black’s king. Black’s queen is also directly in line with the white queen. White’s knight is also extremely active, and is controlling a variety of squares. This is where pattern recognition comes into play. Noticing these tiny details can give your brain little hints on where to move. With white to move, white plays Rc1, taking advantage of the black queen’s restricted movement. Notice that if the black queen takes on b4, then white’s rook can swoop down and deliver checkmate on the back rank. Now, what led us to solve this puzzle? It was the ability to recognize certain patterns on the board, and it gave us the details needed to come up with a solid conclusion. 

Error #3: Learning Prioritization 

Another thing that I regret looking back to the past was that I spent almost all of my time solving puzzles. That begs the question, why am I solving puzzles in the first place? In order to improve at chess as a whole, you need to master certain techniques. One thing that is absolutely necessary to build a solid foundation for future puzzles is calculation. We will cover this topic later but I'd like to point out that theoretical endgames are a great way to exercise this ability, since they are simple, instructive, and improve your visualization. 

Now that we’ve covered some of the basic errors I’ve come across while solving puzzles, I would now like to give a few tips & pointers that will improve your pattern recognition.

Tip #1: Increase Your Chess Vocabulary

Knowing terms like outpost or zugzwang can really help when you’re dealing with tactics. These terms are another piece of the puzzle, and it is extremely handy to have this knowledge available while you are solving. As stated before, studying chess vocabulary is puzzles at the most basic level. Once you have mastered the basics, you can then move on to the actual puzzle. 

Tip #2: Awareness

You may be surprised to learn that when viewing a puzzle, you should always take it as a regular position. That way, you will be less surprised when there are multiple themes at play. Take this puzzle into consideration. 

White’s pieces are extremely active while black’s pieces are relatively safe. Or are they? White has can utilize a discovery attack to his advantage in this position. Nd7 does exactly that. The black queen cannot take the knight, because the discovered check Bxf7+. White will go on to win an exchange. Notice how you had to recognize the themes of this position. First, you have to notice how the rook is on an open file, and then you have to find a way to exploit it. You utilize a fork and a discovered check in this puzzle. In other puzzles, the puzzle might contain a windmill or a double check. This is yet another reason why you should increase your chess vocabulary. 

Tip #3: Intuition

"Your subconcious is vastly more capable of pattern recognition than your concious mind. In fact, it's been proven: some pscychologists conducted an experiment in which subjects played some sort of video game where they would have to react to something by clicking, essentially a reaction time test. However, the stimuli for clicking followed an intricate pattern that was way too complicated to note conciously. Despite not being able to see the pattern, the subjects performed better over time, and their results declined drastically when the pattern was suddenly changed. Don't try too hard to memorize the exact details of the position so that you can "recognize the pattern". Focus on doing lots of puzzles, and you will eventually recognize patterns without trying to." - @BoxJellyFishChess

Repetition is key. Over time, your brain picks up certain patterns in the puzzles it sees and pieces them together, building a stronger foundation for your problem-solving mind to think upon. If you can consistently analyze the puzzles you come across instead of rushing through them without a second thought, then your intuition will start to improve. 

“That's the point. You don't want to have to think about simple tactics.  

They've done studies that show IMs and GMs don't do more calculation than experts. In fact, they often do less. The strongest players have such strong pattern recognition skills and, as a result, chess "intuition" that they don't have to look at nearly as many variations as a lesser player. They are not analyzing and calculating, they are recognizing.”

These words by GM Christopher Yoo perfectly describe the very definition of intuition. If you can look at a puzzle and immediately recognize the patterns without conscious reasoning, you have mastered the skill of intuition. But how do you master this technique? Well aside from everything we have already covered, you can also eat right, exercise, and get a sufficient amount of sleep. Additionally, your pattern recognition improves with repetition. Just like any other skill you want to master, you must practice it over and over again until you have it seared into your mind. 

Tip #4: Calculation

As your rating gradually climbs up to brand new heights, you might find yourself stuck on problems that are 4-5 moves long. This is where calculation is necessary to solve these problems. Again, the ability to calculate comes with plenty of practice, but there are some ways that are more efficient than others. When you are analyzing one of your previous games, don’t let your hands move the pieces, let your brain move them. Calculate 1 to 2 moves ahead, and move up from there. Another exercise you can do at home is to read chess games without a board. For example, if I wrote 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6, what do you see? If you repeatedly do these types of exercises, your ability to calculate will improve. Now, when you are dealing with tactics, it won’t benefit you in any way if you don’t know how to put your calculation skills to use. When you study a puzzle, use the process of elimination and pinpoint which pieces are crucial for observation. Identify a few “candidate moves”, or the moves that are most likely to lead to a favorable outcome. Then you can narrow down the search until there is one candidate move left. Take the position below: 

In this position white’s pieces are active while the majority of black’s pieces are on the back rank. How do you know where to start? First, let's start with the most forcing moves in order: Double checks, captures with check, all moves with check, and finally captures. There are no double checks in this position, so we can rule that option out. Next, let’s look at captures with check. There are no captures with check in this position so we can rule that option out as well. Now we’ll move on to all possible checks. White has Ne7+ or Nh6+ in this position. Now before we analyze further, we need to take a look at all possible captures. White has Bxf6, Nxg7, or Nxd6. Now we can use the process of elimination to minimize our options. We can obviously rule out Ne7+ since this hangs the knight and gives black three ways to capture it. Next, we move on to Nh6+. Black has two options, either to move his king to h8 or to capture the knight with his pawn, so we have to look into both scenarios. First, if black played Kh8 then we can play Nxf7+, forking black’s king and queen. So black’s only other option is to take the knight with his pawn. But if you look closely, you’ll see that the pawn was defending a very important piece, the knight. Now that the knight is left undefended we now realize that we can take the knight with our bishop and threaten the queen. Now let's say black moves his queen to d7. White has a fantastic mate in 2 from there by playing Qg3+ …Bg7 and Qxg7#, so we can conclude that Nh6+ was the correct answer. 

Furthermore, Accuracy is imperative during calculation. If you calculate an 8 move sequence to mate but missed a defense your opponent could do in the 2nd move, then you have calculated in vain. This is where candidate moves come in. After you have completed your calculation with your candidate moves, find candidate moves for your opponent. That way, you will be prepared for whatever the opponent has in store. 

If this method seems a bit intimidating, you’re not alone. I used to be just like you, and even now I’m still learning new methods and improving just like you. If you are having trouble with puzzles similar to my examples, I suggest that you stick to puzzles that are 1-2 moves long, and expand from there. 

Tip #5: Have Fun!

It’s no secret that you’ll learn a new task better when it’s fun and you’re relaxed and in the mood. Your brain is in a relaxed state and is able to hold more information when it is engaged in the activity you are partaking in. So if you ever feel burnt-out or needing to take a break, take a moment to recuperate, relax, and find something else to do. Then when you feel ready, return to solving puzzles with a happy spirit.

I hope these tips have given you the information you need to conquer your goals. If there’s anything you want to add, feel free to say so in the comments section! In the same way, let me know if there’s anything wrong with this guide, so that I can make changes in the future. Now utilize these techniques you have learned today and implement them into your puzzles. Good luck solving!

-Tyler