Why Am I So Terrible at Puzzles?

Hello Chess People,

   I'm George, a long-time player who's spent the last 10 years playing bots as a casual pasttime.  This past year, I decided I wanted to get a lot better, and now I'm at the point when I can usually defeat the 1200 bots, the 1300 bots make me sweat, and I get crushed by 1500 bots in under 30 moves.  I've also been taking the Chess.com lessons and casually reading articles.  That's me in a nutshell.

   Okay:  So when I started at Chess.com account, I tried my hand at the Chess puzzles.  At first, they were absurdly easy.  I zoomed to a 800 rating without much effort.  But then, I hit a wall and now I solve less than half of the puzzles and never within the target time.  Worse, when I stumble/guess my way to the solution, more often than not, I don't understand the solution.  Its really depressing.

   So I'm writing for general advice.  I'm new enough to Chess.com to not really understand the tools at my fingertips.  When I blow a puzzle, what should I do?  How do I analyze the failure?  Does anyone have any tips on how to approach a puzzle?  Any advice is appreciated, thanks!  -G

Whenever you get a puzzle wrong, I go into "analysis" by the checked analysis button in the tactics screen (not by the sidebar like you normally analyze games). It lets you review the puzzle with Stockfish and so you can try to figure out what the correct solution is and why. I do this every time I get a tactic incorrect, but in puzzle rush: you must complete the rush before reviewing any puzzles this way (in puzzle rush, the method is slightly different; clicking the red "x" on the incorrect is how you go to analysis). 

The important thing is that you are learning from the puzzles and knowing why the puzzle solution is best and why you got it wrong. 

You can message me if finding the analysis is not described well enough, but I don't know how to post marked screenshots with a step-by-step format like some do. (I do know how to get screenshots, but not how to point out certain points on the screen).

The key to puzzles is to figure out whether you have material advantage or positional advantage.

Material advantage:

In this puzzle, white has material advantage because white can capture knight with bishop. If bishop captures bishop, you can capture with queen. White captures 2 pieces and black only captured 1.

Positional Advantage:

In this puzzle, white can sacrifice the queen with check. The only move that black has is to capture with knight. Then you can deliver checkmate with rook because bishop protects rook.

My advice would be not to rush. Don't try to match target time. Take as long as you need. Target time is ok when you already know a motif. When you learn you need to take your time. In past it was points punishment if you take too long to solve. Now you get 5 points anyway so use it. Yes you can use "analysis" as well but if you spend enough time you usually have good ideas where could be right solution even if you failed first try.

In puzzles you have to identify the position first  then you can work to improve that position and win by that  

Well, the base skills is to ask yourself when opponent play something, what move can they play to crush my piece? Or check if there any move that can be not in opponent ideas that is good.

My advice is that you should probably re-examine your moves before you make them. Like what @Omega_Doom and @NovitiateOne said, you shouldn't worry about speed as you can win points no matter how fast or slow you solve it.

All you need to do is analyze, practice, and take time. If you want to get to the 2000s, that is all you have to do. Just analyze, practice, and make sure you take time.

Don't look at your time. Ignore the target time and focus on your accuracy first. Check out @GothamChess's video on how to overcome the bump. It's not about puzzles, but it includes how to utilize puzzles to the best of your advantage.

This was a 2500 rated puzzle that I took 3 full minutes to solve around half and hour ago. I only got 5 rating points, but it was still worth it  

Enjoyed the video. I've always said "quality over quantity" with my chess, but it is nice to hear a strong player like IM @GothamChess give good statistical examples.

Funny  how  I just found the video around 4 hours ago, watched all of it, then got my puzzle rating skyrocketing just by trying to solve 15 puzzles with as least mistakes as possible, and not caring about the time. It took me some time, but I managed to do it.

yeah @GothamChess 's vids are quite good. My puzzle rating got higher after watching the video you mentioned as well.

Awesome. Also, funny how seems like everyone but me went to puzzles right after the video...I went to puzzle rush survival, but it is basically the same thing

lol

My two favorite youtubers with funny, but instructive content are GothamChess and Eric Rosen

dont put other competitor chess websites lol

btw eric rosen doesnt try to act funny, he's funny with dry humor

+1 and also wholesome comments worked into the dry humor like Rosen's "Rooks on open files have smiles."  

I think of that a lot of the time I have an open file for a Rook of mine.

This was excellent advice, thank you.  Once I ignored the clock, my puzzle rating went up 100 points.  So awesome!