50-Day Chess Tactic Challenge [REVIEW]

It's been hammered into the heads of chess players everywhere that if you are below a certain rating, like 1500 (maybe even more) your best improvement comes from tactics, tactics tactics. In fact they say study tactics more than you study openings or endgames! You are not losing because you don't know the openings you are losing because you are missing tactics. Improving your tactical ability is one of the fastest ways to improve your rating.

The reason for this is one, because tactics decide every game. No matter what. Yes, HOW they get to the points in the games require more strategic knowledge and are positionally based, but that tactical recognition is still there.

And two, you'll start to notice patterns on the chess board. Now you can't just blindly look at the board and say "oh this works because I saw this", you have to analyze every forcing move (checks, captures, etc), but you start to notice things.

So because of this, I started the 50-Day Tactics Challenge on Chessable with GM Valeriy Aveskulov and FM Sergey Tugaj. 

Each day you get a video of GM Valeriy Aveskulov going through 5 of the 10 problems to solve for the day.  That's it, just 10 problems that come from a curated list of GM games every day for 50 days.

It's so easy, at least for me to make the right fist move and sit and think about the next one until I find it. This course challenges you to find not only the winning lines before making  a move but ALSO Aveskulov will go through other lines in the videos that may also be good but are not the right solution. Or, if you are calculating with the video if you missed a line, then he says as his student he would have counted it wrong.

It's definitely helped me get a focused routine of working on tactics each day. I do it to start my day and its helped me get started on the right foot for the day so to speak.

The puzzles are a mix of easy and hard, and they do appear to be positions that you could find in your own games. 

I have noticed in my own rapid games I take more time (sometimes), and hear Aveskulov in the back of my mind saying "what are the forcing moves, look at all checks and captures" and because I hear it every day it helps focus me.

For anyone studying chess at any level I think having this in your back pocket to study every day on your phone is worth the 45 min or less of your time. I am currently halfway through the challenge and it keeps me going.

You can follow me on chessable and see what I'm up to over there by clicking here! Would love to connect in a mutual love of learning the game!

Until next time!