John Bain's Chess Tactics for Students - My Results
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bonjourmerciaurevoir wrote:
Thank you for your feedback. How long did it take you to read it? And how did you read it (the whole book in one order by 10 everyday or did you insist on certain themes) etc...
Is it your first tactic book?
It took me a little over a month to read the book - I read through it systematically, starting with puzzle one and working through it in order by ten puzzles a day. I am currently working through the book again, solving 20 puzzles each day, and will probably follow something similar to De La Maza's Seven Circle method before moving on to my next tactics books.
Now that I am on my second read-through of the book, I haven't seen another increase in my Tactics Trainer rating, but the time it takes me to solve puzzles around the 1300 level has increased.
Once I feel I have mastered the basic tactical patterns, I will pick a more advanced tactics books to follow the same process with and will hopefully see another increase in my Tactics Trainer score.
Any recommendations on what tactics books to try next after I have master John Bain's?
you have to train your vision at board first , before you start slove problemes , like " undefended pieces , attacked pieces , possibilities of checks , status of each piece , filght squares of kings ect ".. then you will able to slove puzzles much better than any time , also you will get good tactics moves in your games.
Aug 8, 2018
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#5
Abdelhafidi wrote:
you have to train your vision at board first , before you start slove problemes , like " undefended pieces , attacked pieces , possibilities of checks , status of each piece , filght squares of kings ect ".. then you will able to slove puzzles much better than any time , also you will get good tactics moves in your games.
What does it mean "to train your vision"?
p89trd wrote:
What does it mean "to train your vision"?
The point of tactics is to train your vision, no? So no idea what Abdel meant with that
Dec 31, 2021
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#7
I'm guessing Abdel meant that rather than solving puzzles on pure calculation, it helps to gain the "vision" of the board that he described as "undefended pieces , attacked pieces , possibilities of checks , status of each piece , filght squares of kings ect," and use this vision to get a sense of direction and priorities, allowing you to calculate less because you more often start calculation the most promising lines.
It sounds quite trivial, and it probably is for most people, but for me this was a real light-bulb moment (two decades into my "chess career") that allowed me to solve tactics much more effectively. Combined with being conscious about patterns (e.g. dove-tail mate), which allows you to see a mate instantly rather than calculating for each square (which you still do to check obviously). I.e., don't just brute-force possible moves to see what happens, but some kind of understanding, and consciously focus on this understanding during practice to allow it to become intuition.
However, this could also me projecting myself onto Abdel. 
Jan 15, 2022
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#8
I have 2 Heisman books and Bain's puzzles. Slogging thru it is manually time consuming but good. I also love the puzzles on chess.com. AYNONE SEEN BAIN's ONLINE? Would be a boon to folks like us. Big reward 
I am currently working my way through John Bain's book on Chess Tactics and it has been quite helpful to me. Mainly, I play rapid chess and before I started reading chess, I managed to come up to 1000s, and since then I was stuck between 1000-1100 for a long time (several months), and honestly, it broke my confidence quite a bit!
However, I started reading chess and began with Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess followed by my current book (John Bain's) and it has been quite helpful. Now as you can probably tell by my current rating (1100+) I am still a noob but I've realized that reading chess has boosted my confidence a lot and I intend to continue growing.
Coming back to Bain's book on tactics, I think it is quite beginner friendly and introduces you to all sorts of common tactics that you see on board and really gives you a better vision to help you identify such positions.
Hi Everyone,
I've enjoyed all the advice that is posted on these forums, so I thought I would share my results related to tactics study and hopefully encourage others who are at my level as well. I'm still a lower-rated player, so I am focusing my time on tactical exercises and settled on John Bain's Chess Tactics for Students based on Dan Heisman's advice and recommendations on this forum.
Prior to working through his tactical problem set, my Tactics Trainer rating fluctuated between 1000 and 1100. After working through his book for a month (solving 10 problems each day), my TT rating jumped to 1300. I have a long way to go before I have a competitive rating, but I still think it's encouraging to see a 200 point jump following the oft-cited advice to study tactics.