The most important part of tactics puzzles is STUDYING the ones you get wrong, if you aren't doing that then you are wasting your time. Tactics puzzles are supposed to rapidly add relevant patterns to your mental database, this is done most effectively by thoroughly analyzing all failed puzzles to solidify the new patterns in your head.
Why Tactics will never make me a better player.
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Feb 7, 2018
0
#23
You should improve all parts of your game. I know that most people will tell you "don't care about opening", but this is ridiculous. If you begin the game already losing material or getting to a horrible position, tactics will not help you much.
The best thing is to play openings using opening principles or - better- to learn a system for black and one for white. Dont take a book, this is frustrating as you will forget most lines in few hours. Best is to learn by spaced repetition (for example in the website Chessable). There you will find also a book on endgame for free.
And stop playing blitz, this is nothing! Better is to play Daily, only two games simultaneously, taking a lot of time for every move. Doing so you can improve 200 to 400 points in one year, perhaps more if you are talented.
And analyze your games, better with the help of a strong player. If you can afford a coach, take one. But first learn some openings and endgames.
"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings] will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
"... Overall, I would advise most players to stick to a fairly limited range of openings, and not to worry about learning too much by heart. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... Once you identify an opening you really like and wish to learn in more depth, then should you pick up a book on a particular opening or variation. Start with ones that explain the opening variations and are not just meant for advanced players. ..." - Dan Heisman (2001)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140626180930/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman06.pdf
"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"... If the book contains illustrative games, it is worth playing these over first ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"... the average player only needs to know a limited amount about the openings he plays. Providing he understands the main aims of the opening, a few typical plans and a handful of basic variations, that is enough. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... For inexperienced players, I think the model that bases opening discussions on more or less complete games that are fully annotated, though with a main focus on the opening and early middlegame, is the ideal. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2010)
"... Everyman Chess has started a new series aimed at those who want to understand the basics of an opening, i.e., the not-yet-so-strong players. ... I imagine [there] will be a long series based on the premise of bringing the basic ideas of an opening to the reader through plenty of introductory text, game annotations, hints, plans and much more. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627055734/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen38.pdf
"The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. Playing an opening in real games is of vital importance - without this kind of live practice it is impossible to get a 'feel' for the kind of game it leads to. There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)
Feb 7, 2018
0
#25
Tactics strengthens your pattern recognition. You gotta look on the bright side sometimes!
From one of your games:
You were black in a 5|5 game and had 4:26 minutes. After 4 seconds you moved your king to d8, In that position the enemy queen attacks the bishop on a2. So you have to move that bishop or guard it with Qe6. You leave too much stuff unguarded. That's tactics too.
I could find twenty other positions where you hang stuff and the opponent simply captures or where you don't catpure the opponents hanging stuff.
Playing slower and identify every possible hanging stuff could help. Maybe you should also read many of Dan Heisman's texts here on chess.com
https://www.chess.com/article/view/spotting-and-avoiding-tactics
or
the old chesscafe.com Novice Nooks series.
I just had a closer look to your statistics. You tried about 6000 tactics with a training time of 35 hours. That means that you spent 20 seconds in average on solving tactics. I think that is not enough to memorize critical patterns. Take your time and be more precise instead of "mass solving" puzzles.
Further you should think about your time controls, your playing mainly 5/5 Blitz,,, maybe you should consider to use longer time controls in order to get better.
I think your main problem is that you are too impatient. It is not about playing as many games and solving as many tactics as possible but to be precise and understanding patterns.
And btw: you gained about 150-200 rating points in the last year. What are you complaining about? Also don't be impatient with your rating success, it takes time..
From the same game as above.
Thankfully white later blundered his queen, again to simple tactics, and black won.
As you can see, tactics are all over the place, you just have to take your time to see that. Any time there's an undefended piece, make sure it can't be captured directly or indirectly through a check or another strong threat.
Hokaido wrote:
Tactics suck and heres why. I KNOW there is an advantage. How do we get into the advantage? WHO KNOWS. Doing tactics only make you see whats already there, not how to get there. How does that make you better? It doesn't. I have done thousands of tactics, have seen the EASY adavantage on most of them and yet can still not beat 900 rated players whem I am 1000 - 1100. How does a player get any better? This is starting to frustrate me sooooo much I read all the time " to get better than 1000 do tactics" well guess what it hasnt happened and i ask HOW DO I GET BETTER?
Practicing tactics is an integral part of a good chess training and should be practiced regularly alongside with endgames, middlegame strategy etc.
Knowing basic combinational patterns and tactics will help you find, calculate moves. It will be easier for you to calculate because you will see without moving the pieces why a certain variation is bad in a tactical sense.
Positional evaluation is more difficult but this is another story.
Feb 7, 2018
0
#30
MickinMD wrote:
You have done lots of tactics, but you only get a little more than half of them right.
Try this:
1. take your time on tactics problems - at least 5 minutes if you don't see the answer.
2. On the problems you fail, go back and redo the problem, unrated, until you solve it.
3. After you solve each problem, name the tactics involved - look at the TAGS if you don't know the name. Look at the pattern required for that tactic and, if you didn't solve it quickly, ask yourself why you didn't see it sooner and look at how the pattern can help you see it faster in the future.
4. Make sure you know several dozen Tactical Motifs by name and that you can easily demonstrate them and describe their patterns. The name provides a hook in your brain that allows you to retrieve the information faster. Slowly learn all the Tactical Motifs on these pages:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples
This is good advice to follow.
Read a simple Tactics book (Littlewood, 1984) and a simple endgame book (Silman,...Endgames, Explained Move by Move, @1990s). Without knowing this small (and compact) body of knowledge you might never get above the 1000 rating range.
P.S. Bullet chess does not apply in the case of "chess knowledge." You need a certain minimum amount of knowledge to move forward. Also, try playing Game in 5/5 -- at least then you will typically reach the end of the game "OTB," instead of on the clock.
End of Story, unless you want to keep whining.
Feb 7, 2018
0
#32
Snookslayer wrote:
Snookslayer wrote: Don't listen to these nerds! I looked at your last few games.... you're breaking basic Opening Principles! Mainly - moving same piece twice in opening and not developing fast enough! Along with a million pawn moves in another game. You wanna kick the crap out of low-rated players and see tactics appear on the board??? Follow opening principles. That's all it takes. To get above 1500 rated...
I ain't figured that part out yet.
most low rated players, I have found, won't let you play basic opening principles. i.e. they always open up with some God forsaken, strange attack, that forces you to play profalacticly. I absolutely hate that. my advice: if you want to learn tactics, play higher rated player, thatll
Don't listen to these nerds! I looked at your last few games.... you're breaking basic Opening Principles! Mainly - moving same piece twice in opening and not developing fast enough! Along with a million pawn moves in another game.
You wanna kick the crap out of low-rated players and see tactics appear on the board??? Follow opening principles. That's all it takes. To get above 1500 rated... I ain't figured that part out yet.
Feb 7, 2018
0
#33
The trick actually is tactics, but you have to go slow and try to get as many right as possible
You guys give great advice. I will be coming here more often to read. Thanks
Possibly of interest:
"..., you have to make a decision: have tons of fun playing blitz (without learning much), or be serious and play with longer time controls so you can actually think.
One isn't better than another. Having fun playing bullet is great stuff, while 3-0 and 5-0 are also
ways to get your pulse pounding and blood pressure leaping off the charts. But will you become a good player? Most likely not.
Of course, you can do both (long and fast games), ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (June 9, 2016)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Simple-Attacking-Plans-77p3731.htm
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1948)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-back-to-basics-tactics
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Studying Chess Made Easy by Andrew Soltis
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090448/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review750.pdf
Seirawan stuff:
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092617/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review560.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-winning-chess-endings
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm
too much information spongey
Your problem is not just with tactics. Your main problem is that you keep making the same mistakes over and over again and you do not know what mistakes you are making?
If you are sincere in improving your game you will cut way down on speed chess and make an effort to find out what mistakes you are making over and over again--and then do something about those mistakes.
Feb 7, 2018
0
#38
ponz111 wrote:
Your problem is not just with tactics. Your main problem is that you keep making the same mistakes over and over again and you do not know what mistakes you are making?
If you are sincere in improving your game you will cut way down on speed chess and make an effort to find out what mistakes you are making over and over again--and then do something about those mistakes.
All the OP plays is blitz. Nothing wrong with that, but if he is really serious about improving, he will lay off the blitz.
The trick is tactics, but you have to commit, do hundreds of thousands, offensive, defensive, and drawing. When you think you have done enough to vomit, do ten times more. Then do it again. Then you have to be able to translate your pattern recognition systematically to OTB. Through nauseating repetition, you learn which geometrical arrangements of pieces will lead to big gains/losses and then once you have this mostly down pat both in the tactics trainer and OTB world, you can start really working for those more gradual microscopic gains (neither my opponent nor I have any quick shots that win the game or gain material... maybe if I try to open this file/diagonal and control it or head a knight to this weak square...?). At least that is how I hope to approach it one day.
blueemu wrote:
Hokaido wrote:
Tactics suck and heres why. I KNOW there is an advantage. How do we get into the advantage? WHO KNOWS. Doing tactics only make you see whats already there, not how to get there. How does that make you better? It doesn't. I have done thousands of tactics, have seen the EASY adavantage on most of them and yet can still not beat 900 rated players whem I am 1000 - 1100. How does a player get any better? This is starting to frustrate me sooooo much I read all the time " to get better than 1000 do tactics" well guess what it hasnt happened and i ask HOW DO I GET BETTER?
Tactics is knowing what to do when there's something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there's nothing to do.
Sounds like you feel that you need to start studying strategy. I suggest starting with Pawns. Pawns form the rigid skeleton of a position, and the Pawn structure will influence the roles of all the other pieces.
See if you can get your hands on a copy of "Pawn Power in Chess" by Hans Kmoch. If not, try to get "Pawn Structure Chess" by Soltis.
Blueemu, is a fine advice for a 1600 elo player, especially if they want to get to 1800 elo and higher but a online rated 1050 player is too advance for him; if he can't improve on tactics I will say his study habits is poor. I remember being at 1162 uscf and studying tactics and elementary endgame and Morphy's games by Sergeant and Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev and my rating went to 1800 uscf in one year and half. Players who really want to improve look for books that is appropriate for them, I knew that Morphy will teach me how to attack and I needed some strategy and when I saw the title " Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev I knew that was the book for me; the author will explain each move so I can understand and have better comprehension how to conduct a game properly.
Actually studying tactics helps you to be tactically aware and to avoid your opponents tactical shots as much as advance your own. The problem is that in solving tactics we are only interested in the solution and hardly ever take the time to look at the elements which led up to the tactics being possible. there are ways to resolve this by playing through the game and to see what elements led up to the tactic being made possible.
Essentially there are three components to tactics, one is seeing the tactical motif, the other visualising the outcome and the third evaluating that outcome. These are all good and valid skills, the problem is though, what to do when there are no tactical shots on the chessboard, either our own or our opponents. For that we need another set of skills. positional ones, both static and dynamic.
I practise tactics all the time because i like it more than playing chess. Not on this site but on others. The timed tactic trainer is a real hindrance.