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Basic tactics first before doing difficult stuff

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torrubirubi
torrubirubi
Closed: Inactive
Feb 17, 2019
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#1

I am training with several books on tactics. Now I came to the conclusion that I have really to know well the basic stuff before trying to solve difficult puzzles. 

The reason is that the basic tactics are important for the more difficult exercises. 

One book that I really like is this here:

Common Chess Patterns
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  1. Chess Tactics

Common Chess Patterns

MoveTrainer™ Tactics course by Benedictine (148 ECF, 1810 Equivalent FIDE)
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BrowseReview (13)
"Common chess patterns. A large collection of tactical patterns organised by theme and individually isolated in order to aid recall. "

"This course contains two sections: the isolated section and the test positions section. The first isolated section consists of knight forks patterns, double attack patterns, pin patterns, double check patterns and deflection/remove the defender patterns. It also contains all the major (and some minor) checkmate patterns which have all been likewise isolated with the ‘noise’ of the chessboard greatly reduced. There are over 370 positions in this section."

"The second section contains the tactical and mate test positions. These are all taken from real games and represent the same positions or similar positions as in the first section, but without any isolation. There are over 290 positions in this section including 130 mates."

"The suggested method of study is to complete the first section several times (using the review function) before moving on to test section. It is hoped that when doing the test position, patterns trained in the first section will start to immediately ‘jump out’ and as such the user will be using pattern recognition rather than calculation. The isolated section could also be used as warm-up puzzles before working on harder calculation exercises or done before tournament play for added sharpness."

"All positions include arrows and circles for added visual clarity. Verbally commentary has also been purposely kept brief and all positions have been computer checked and soft fail alternatives added where appropriate."
"
This is a course to train your pattern recognition, and although many of the positions are ‘easy’ at first sight, the vast majority of the real game positions have been taken from the games of very strong players (2300-2600) suggesting that many players can benefit from regularly training commonly occurring patterns."
The author is not that strong if compared with most other authors, but I think that this doesn't matter at all. Perhaps this is even an advantage, as the author still remember how difficult it was to solve "simple" tactics not so long ago. The exercises are very good, and I am amazing that I didn't find the solution for some so-called simple tactics.
I am planing to go through all the 725 exercises several times. The fact that I am using spaced repetition in the learning process is very helpful to learn in a very efficient way. With this book I am trying to calculate every single position until the end. I do it usually speaking loud: "What is going on here? I see that the the exercise has something to do with the rook, which is only once defended, and with the exposed black king. What can I do? Probably a double attack, but how? Wait, of course, Queen to h8 and the rook is lost. Very simple, indeed".