how else can I improve tactics besides puzzles

Hello Cosmicnets77,

I’m really sorry to hear that you’re not seeing progress, but I want to help you. It’s important to remember that even if improvements seem minimal or nonexistent, that’s not the case. By regularly doing puzzles, you gain a better sense of piece movement patterns in various positions. As a beginner, it’s common to have a mental block with pieces like the knight due to fear of making blunders.

You’ll also learn to recognize brilliant sacrifices, which can help you get out of tricky situations. Additionally, you’ll become faster at analyzing your own positions in games since you need to quickly assess new positions in puzzles.

For long-term improvement, consider starting with the opening basics lessons on Chess.com. Also, participate regularly in Chess.com tournaments and play against stronger players. After each game, review the analysis to see what your opponent did better or worse.

For premium benefits, I highly recommend the Platinum subscription on Chess.com, as it offers the best value for money in my opinion.

I wish you the best of luck with these tips on Chess.com and look forward to seeing you break the 1000 ELO mark soon.🧸♟️

Thank you for suggesting this! I will check this out.

You will see improvement when you learn a bit more about positional strategy.

doing tactics puzzles is a very limited way of trying to improve as a chess player. When you are playing actual games, no one is standing behind you to tell you that there is a tactical trap available. And just doing tactical puzzles does not teach you how to achieve positions in which there are tactical traps.

playing only for tactical traps is a poor way to play. String players keep improving their position until winning tactical sequences become available. The tactics come after the positional play.

so, doing tactical puzzles is one way for a beginner to start learning. But you should expand to positional study as well, to become a decent player.

The point of tactic puzzles is not to help "setting up traps in the middle games". Absolutely not.

They help you quickly identify tactic patterns, and they help your calculation skills. That's what they do.

And anyway, in the middle game you shouldn't think of "setting up traps". Just play chess, try to find good moves, avoid blunders, and punish the blunders of your opponents.

The best way to improve tactics is to analyse your lost games.

My advice (as a chess coach and 2100+ player):

Learn and apply the most important principles of chess.
Always blunder-check your moves.
Solve tactics in the right way.
Analyze your games.
Study games of strong players.
Learn how to be more psychologically resilient.
Work on your time management skills.
Get a coach if you can.

This seems to me to be the key, regarding puzzles.

So, as an incompetent, I'll hazard a guess: wouldn't it be more effective to solve puzzles from books ? In online ones the temptation to make the first move and then go move by move is too strong, while the effectiveness of a puzzle is maximum when you solve it entirely in your head, without moving the pieces at every step.

If I said nonsense, correct me.