Improving Tactics

Hey guys! I’ve noticed a lot of players in the vote chess  club has really good puzzle scores (I.e. tactics) 

What advice can you give to the rest of us? I’m attempting to get to 2000 by years end and any advice is appreciated. 

My puzzle scores keeps going down, so I don't know what to say

For me, it helped going into the puzzle knowing that there was going to be a solution. There was going to be a right way to solve it, whether it was checkmating, winning a piece, or sometimes something even more subtle. I think on those you just have to try to take a quick scan, paying attention to the positions of the kings, and seeing if your pieces are in a position to attack that king, or if there are pieces in line for something, like a skewer or fork or something. I mean, I guess that is the point of doing puzzles, so that might not help much  I don't remember if I even got to 2100 or not, so I might not be much help, but I would suggest right when you get on the puzzle, taking a quick scan of the board and pay attention especially to the positioning of their king, and also pay attention to your pieces in relation to that, and if checkmating/attacking the king doesn't look like the way to go, try looking for opponent piece position, such as in positions where you can skewer/fork, or see if they have positioned some of their pieces in an odd place, since that might be what you need to attack. Also, I would suggest feeling free to take your time if you do not know what the puzzle answer is. I think it would be better to, if the puzzle is taking a long time, make sure you figure it out, or at least are pretty sure about the answer, before attempting to solve, instead of just making a wild guess when you can't find it in the first 20/30 seconds. 

Like I said, that might not be much help, since my puzzle rating is averaging around 2000 right now, but maybe it will help 

I will second N00B's advice to take your time on tactics trainer. I am limited to 5/day, which while it isn't much, does help me to take each one seriously. I have plateaued in my puzzle rating for awhile now, unfortunately, but it is worth doing; it's a good diagnostic.

For actually improving your puzzles rating, I found Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen's Woodpecker Method a good one. The basic gist of it is, since you want to build up a large number of mental patterns, to solve a set of problems once taking your time, then solve the same problems over and over again more quickly to internalize the patterns in those problems. Then you start with a new set. There are some sites that let you train that way and I have an app I use that does something similar (I don't think chess.com will allow me to give specific names as they have a policy against anything that advertises a potential competitor), but the easiest way is probably to just use a puzzles book you have and follow that pattern - solve everything you can from the book in a week or so, then try to solve those same puzzles in shorter and shorter time frames to internalize the patterns so you recognize them instantly.

Good luck on the quest to 2000! On a personal note, your post inspired me to get back to doing my five allowed puzzles per day again and I just hit a new milestone - first time ever ending my puzzle session at 2400!

Wow! That's awesome! Maybe I need to try to get back up into 2100....

Wow guys. You guys rock! Congrats MasterDean 

I’m up to 1821 in puzzles now. (All time best). Slow and steady seems to be the way. @Noobmaster is over 2k again. So many strong tactical players in this small club. 

@MasterDean I’ve been using your method as well. So I am not doing as many puzzles but I am repeating them over and over. Hopefully it will one day show up in my game 😂. Thanks again to everyone for their advice. 

1800 comes before 2000, right? I probably need to work harder as well...maybe I'll go do some

Got my puzzle rating up to 2100 after reading your comments  I think I'll stop for now and let my brain, and my puzzle amount, refresh

Yes, definitely take a break until after our matches have finished. 😉 

My slow and steady climb continues. Passed 1900 yesterday for the first time. I hope others are continuing their puzzles as well. I really hope to pass the 2k barrier soon. 

Well done. I took a break for a bit; life is tough with a new baby, but I'm making it work, occasionally whipping some 1800 players like mohotma ... but I'll get back to it. I dropped back a bit from my 2400 something peak to 2333, but I'll get back on it.

On a side note, I have at one point been a chess coach for a pretty successful team (we were second in our state two years running despite being a much smaller school). I don't know if anybody wants any coaching, but I have missed that since I moved and changed jobs so if anyone was interested I was tempted to write an article in a forum on some element of chess from my point of view. If there's any interest, I know I'm not the strongest player, but I do know coaching and miss that life, so I'd be willing to do so if there is interest. Any curiosity in that? I think I would write something on color complexes since that seemed to be something maybe there was some lack of knowledge in from some of our vote chess games. Let me know if anyone would like me to write up some thoughts on them.

Congrats on the new baby @MasterDean! And yes, you definitely destroyed me but it was a fun experience (after the fact) and I appreciated your notes on the match. 

I didn’t know you were a coach and I’d be very interested in anything you are willing to share. I would strongly encourage you to post your own topic on that subject so it is not missed as I’m not sure how many players read this thread. 

I, for one, would love to get better at blitz and rapid. I can’t think fast at all and it shows. Any advice you can give in that scenario is greatly appreciated as always my friend. 

I hadn't realized you were a coach before masterdean! If you do feel willing to share, I'd be interested in anything. I, like mohotma, would be interested in knowing anything about bullet and blitz improvement, but your difference between bullet and daily seems similar to my difference as well

Color complexes are definitely something I am inexperienced on, as well as knowing where to attack in the middlegame(kingside, center, queenside). Any of those things would be quite helpful to me at least. 

Also nice job to mohotma on reaching 1900! I haven't been doing my puzzles recently, so still just below 2100 I think. 

Hit 2200 rating for the first time today(2204 to be exact). I didn't do any more puzzles after I got that

Nice! That’s quite impressive 

Thanks!

2002!!!!!!!!!!!! I made it guys! Thanks to all those who offered advice. I took it to heart believe that.