How do you get 1337 at tactics?

The book I use is Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games by Polgar. Most of it consists of mates-in-two, but towards the end, there are very long and difficult combinations. It should provide excellent long-term practice, i.e. probably something like a year's worth, depending on how much time you spend on tactics.

falsification :

Weak players only analyse continuations in a combination that are favourable to them, I go here he takes the Rook I take back etc.

The problem is he might not take that rook but go say Ra1 #.

You must analyse your move and try to prove that your assumptions of the reply are false, try to find the best reply for your opponent.

In Blitz and speed problem solving you can miss this step out due to time pressure and it can become a bad habit OTB.

To learn the habit of falsification is what seperates the strong player from the weak.

On the point of positional vs tactical chess, if there is such a thing, if you sit down two players one playing solely positionally and one playing solely tactically the tactical player will score 100% that is why you start with tactics.

I disagree with the bold part.  Of course it's not possible to have a purely tactical player vs a purely positional player, but I think the positional player would win the majority of the games, not every game, but most of them.

Tactics are studied first because a material advantage is the simplest type for a beginner to convert and even at top levels remains one of the primary advantages.  That and mating attacks make tactics very important.

You are right of course the situation is hypothetical, but say you had 2 computers one programmed 100% positional, it plays say Rd1 taking an open file threatening to invade the  7th rank etc, the tactical computer just goes N+ forking King  and Rook and so on through the game in the end the tactical computer must win, sadly in chess tactics rule.

Even the strongest computers have absolutely no positional idea whatsoever it is all done with brute force calculation and they beat the finest positional  players in the world.

I reset my TT rating to 1200 and it took me 186 problems to go over 2000, I want 80% accuracy and I only got 69%, still that is progress up from 63%, I will reset and try again, in my view this is thr best way to use TT unless you are a Blitz Wizard. I lose hundreds of points in time penalties but it is accuracy I am after.

So says Short anyway.

If you had two computers programed in such a way, remember the tactical computer will play the opening almost randomly because there are no tactics -- if it weren't for that, lets say they start in an open middle game, then I do think tactics would win.

I haven't really used the TT on here (maybe 5 problems or so?) so I'm not sure about any of those numbers.  I have heard the thing to do is go for accuracy though, so I guess you're doing it right

Even though I was promoting positional play, tactics are still probably a stronger point for me, although I'm beginning to get more of a balance.  Like many beginners one of my first books was a puzzle book that spent many hours going though, and maybe a year later, going through it again.  I think positional aspects really enhance your tactical ability though -- before I would just try to keep pieces active, knights on outposts, rooks on open files etc and hope for a tactic to eventually appear.  Now I can (at least try to) actively build my position, and I can start to see how tactics only appear afterwards.

It's a fun feeling playing a game and nearly the only tactics I stop to check for are at the end of my move as a quick blunder check (I'm talking blitz games, not OTB tournament)  Mostly I just try to move with the idea of the position and I get a good game without too much effort.  Although I suspect many players weaker than me already do this at least to some extent, I was just so tactical for so long it's still something of a novelty for me to play like this.

I thought "The Art of Attack - By Vladimir Vukovic" was a good book.  It had neat ideas like imagining a pawn is gone, and how coordination of defensive pieces come into the role of wether a sacrifice is sound or not - seems pretty tactical to me.  Although I don't even like playing chess really but just reading about it, so it sounds like more practical advice was given.

Yeah this is important in slow games. I'm mainly after improving my tactics in long otb games and not blitz. You think tactics trainer is a waste of time then (because TT is more about pattern recognition then actual calculation)?

No it is not a waste of time, there is a thing called subconcious intellect with TT you are training this, the patterns are stored in your subconscious and become instantly available to you in a game, by the way this is also why children are thought to progress faster at chess when starting young the subconscious intellect plays a role in developing language skills and is highly receptive up to about 8 or 10 years of age.

You have to be aware that this is only part of the picture from here you must use calculation to verify fully what your subconscious is telling you intuitively.

Ah yes, very good point. I'll continue drilling tactics each day then. Should do the trick.