Does anyone else have trouble applying tactics they’ve learned in puzzles to their games?
Sort:
Thank you llama47. I am out of my daily puzzles, but I will try that tomorrow. I think I mainly look at puzzle moves, and that might be a cause for my problem. There are a lot of queen sack solutions that I don’t really calculate very far, but know it’s the solution because it’s similar to other solutions I’ve had. I guess this doesn’t really help at all in actual games, since if I do queen sack I would need to do a lot of calculations before hand.
Oct 16, 2021
0
#23
SpacePodz wrote:
Thank you llama47. I am out of my daily puzzles, but I will try that tomorrow. I think I mainly look at puzzle moves, and that might be a cause for my problem. There are a lot of queen sack solutions that I don’t really calculate very far, but know it’s the solution because it’s similar to other solutions I’ve had. I guess this doesn’t really help at all in actual games, since if I do queen sack I would need to do a lot of calculations before hand.
Yes, that’s the problem I face as well. I guess puzzles are more pattern recognition, but if we do it Llama’s way, it improves calculation.
Oct 16, 2021
0
#24
Games sort of have two modes...
In the first "mode" you calculate things like queen sacrifices, even if they seem crazy at first, you check to see what they lead to. Sometimes a tactic almost works, and so your move can help set it up to work later.
If there is no tactic, then you switch to normal stuff like improving your position in some way.
If you're missing tactics, the reason could be like Emu said, and your intuition / pattern recognition isn't alerting you to the possibility of a tactic. But like I said, if it's a tactic you "should" have seen, I think people miss those tactics because they're either not considering forcing moves at all, or they're not considering a wide range of candidate moves.
I do both of those mistakes all the time when I'm tired or distracted.
Oct 16, 2021
0
#25
In one of finegold's rants he basically says the same thing... he says something like when he tells a 1000 rated player that BxN is good, it's not as if the player says "I don't understand" because they see it's good right away... but they didn't play it because they were focused on some other move, and that other move was the only move they looked at.
Oct 16, 2021
0
#26
When you do puzzles you know that there is a winning move available in the position. In a game this is rarely the case. Believe it or not, many of your opponents will be careful to NOT open themselves up to tactical salvoes.
Oct 16, 2021
0
#27
SpacePodz wrote:
So, I’ve noticed I have a hard time applying my tactics in my games. I know my puzzle rating isn’t that high compared to most, but It’s high enough to let me know most basic tactics. However, I can rarely use these in my games. Does anyone else have this problem?
Just be patient and keep up with your puzzles along with analyzing each game.
I’m a slow learner so my tactical awareness and abilities didn’t started coming alive until I crossed 2500 rated puzzles.
I am a horrible blitz player but managed to beat a 1700 and 1400 despite being rated 1200. One game I exploited a pin and another was a boring pawn push along with an active king leading to a winning end game.
Enjoy the learning process. Getting the exposure and doing the exercises do help.
As others have mentioned, practice good habits like calculating and going thru variations; I forced myself to literally sit on my hands so that my eyes would do the work. This really helped me with two handfuls of unrated OTB games recently where I cleanly played without hanging a piece or pawn and executed the right sequence of combinations.
Even now, I struggle with maneuvering knights with two or more moves in combinations. My brain and eyes just doesn’t see it.
Oct 16, 2021
0
#28
https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement
Check out John Bartholomew Channel which is mentioned to there and especially the playlists he tells you to watch.
I don't know how chess.com does puzzles. If all of them are timed here, then don't do puzzles here, because that's ridiculous.
They have a “time bonus” for solving quickly, but technically no time limit.
If I took 15 minutes to solve a puzzle how many rating points would I get?
Depends on the so-called “rating” of the puzzle. I think for a puzzle close to one’s puzzle rating, 5 points would be received. Not sure though. Puzzle ratings don’t really matter to me, anyhow. I only use it to track my progress.
Hmm, ok. 5 points isn't bad.