Tactics Training Day 8 | Faster With 3 Minute Puzzle Rush
Hmm. I don't know about this. I survived 5 minute Puzzle Rush and got decent scores, but 3 minute is so much faster. I tested it earlier today and it felt like the clock was ticking faster than it should. I'm still getting used to 3 minute blitz, and even there I get more time to think, on my opponent's time.
My schedule for today is half an hour of 3 minute Puzzle Rush, and then 20 rated puzzles. I have a feeling that I'm going to run out of time a lot more than I'm going to fail three puzzles today. Three minutes just is way too fast. But it'll help with my speed calculation, and that's something that I'm not bad at. Let's see if I can get on the hourly podium. Right now the record for the hour is held by Tetra_Wolf, with 35 puzzles solved. Not too unrealistic, but it'll be quite difficult. That'll be my goal for today. I'll be able to do a lot more attempts since each rush will take less time. I might be able to do 10 or a few more, so I should have a good amount of shots to get over 35.
Time to get started! This should be fun.
ATTEMPT 1: 31
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/7BqSsY
Failed an easy puzzle with 6 seconds left on the clock! 31 isn't bad though. Just 4 away from the leader!
ATTEMPT 2: 30
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/3jh7pz
Okay.
ATTEMPT 3: 26
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/45LTK4
I can do better.
ATTEMPT 4: 26
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/2N1HRx
Still not good enough...
ATTEMPT 5: 32
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/28kmbk
Best so far.
ATTEMPT 6: 27
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/5pyypa
Still not good enough.
ATTEMPT 7: 31
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/mFx1k
Trying...
ATTEMPT 8: 30
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/71jf1p
Not yet.
ATTEMPT 9: 28
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/71jf1p
I have one more shot at this.
ATTEMPT 10: 32
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rush/colorfulcake/6Qxyft
My highest score is 32. If we do the math, my average is 29.3. Just to make the math easier we'll say that my average was 30. So I had 180 seconds to do as many puzzles as possible, and I got 30 puzzles, which means that my average time per puzzles was 6 seconds. Not bad.
Comparing to yesterday's five minute Puzzle Rush, we can see that my average today was very good comparing to yesterday. In five minutes, my average score was 32, just 2 more (or 2.7 to be precise) than my 3 minute average. Weird, considering that I had a whole 2 minutes more to solve puzzles. Although we do have to factor in that the difficulty level of the puzzles gets higher and higher as we go on.
So my average time per puzzle yesterday was a smidge less than 6 seconds per puzzle, so my speed was about the same. We can conclude that five minute Puzzle Rush and three minute Puzzle Rush are not extremely different. Of course, in five minutes you can solve more puzzles, but in the rush of three minutes you're forced to go faster and solve puzzles faster, but in five minute you can slow down a little bit and use the extra time for the harder puzzles, so the average scores are close. At least for me. For higher level players, the difference between averages would probably be much larger as they would have much stronger tactical skill and would take advantage of the extra two minutes more effectively.
I took a lunch break after doing about 5 Rushes and the hour changed, so the first highest score changed from 35 to 42, achieved by GM Kira170, whose blitz rating is 2614 and bullet 2708! His best 3 minute rush score is 43, but his best 5 minute is 46, so maybe the difference isn't all that much, even for a GM.
Now I'm about 14th for the hour. It's constantly changing.
Enlightening.
Now on to my daily 20 rated puzzles. Yesterday's goal was 2800, and that's what it will be today. I failed to get 2800 yesterday but still increased my rating, but now I want to secure 2800.
PUZZLES ATTEMPTED: 20
PUZZLES FAILED: 9
PUZZLES SOLVED: 11
PASS RATE: 55%
STARTING PUZZLES RATING: 2759
ENDING PUZZLES RATING: 2789
RATING +/- TODAY: 30
On one of the puzzles I had the answer and was going to make the move but my mouse slipped, but I consider that one to be solved.
Still not yet 2800. But still an increase of 30 points, which is good. My pass rate is not as good as I would want it to be, but at least it is still above 50%. I went slower this time, and some of the puzzles I did didn't give me as many points because I got them correct but took up a lot of time, much more than my target time.
And now what you've all been waiting for. Some puzzles! I don't have much time since I have something to do in 15 minutes so I'll only insert three, but next time I'll give you more.
And a nice simple one to brush it all up.
Comment how many of the puzzles you got in the comments below! I hope you enjoyed them. Thanks for reading! Tomorrow I won't be doing any tactics training, just playing speed chess and relaxing, taking a break from training. I'll post my rating +/-, and some highlights in my games, if there's any tactics, tricks and traps, nice combinations, or mating sequences. I'll have a lot of fun tomorrow. See you then!
