There is NO wrong answer! 

What are you practicing now, and how are you going about it?

repetitio est mater studiorum.
Repetition is the mother of studies.

I am on my lunch break, fresh from teaching my morning band classes, where I harped on my students to practice, practice and PRACTICE. Just showing up to my class and playing through the songs is not going to cut it. A trumpet player needs to do long tone studies everyday to develop his lip muscles, for example, or he will end up being Johnny one note!

I guess that everyone can improve at chess without practicing, by playing hundreds of slow games against stronger players. NM Dan Heisman says that one can improve at chess by playing slow games. He also mentions that Blitz chess will not improve one’s game. But how often does that happen in one's life?

When I play Live Chess, I went from 10 0 to 15 10, which gives a lot more time to think especially with the 10 second increment, but this does not meet Dan Heisman’s standard for a slow game, with 45 minute, 45 second per move increment per side being the fastest time control for slow games. I have NEVER played a game that slow. Ever!

My current obsession is the practice of checkmates and tactics found in books, going over them several times each until the patterns become permanently ingrained.

Over the weekend, I will take the tactics trainer problem numbers that I have saved in Microsoft Word word, enter them into ChessBase, where I will then convert them into puzzles on my Kindle. I will use my Kindle as a flashcard device, and go over these puzzles many times, only allowing myself to move the pieces mentally, until I know them cold. I got the idea of flashcard tactics from chess.com member Ziryab. He uses physical flashcards that he has created.

The problem with ONLY doing Tactics Trainer for me is that I don’t get enough practice moving the pieces mentally. Example: I see a check¸ and it looks like a real strong move, but I am not 100% sure it is the correct move, but I will play it anyway (being lazy), and sometimes get the problem right. Well, this will not work in a real chess game!

I am not a premium member of Chess Tempo yet, but I am considering adding it, and still keeping my chess.com premium membership for Unlimited Tactics Trainer, and with Chess Tempo, I will get what is called Spaced Repetition. Free members don’t have access to this feature, and I think that chess.com member hicetnunc talked about this in a previous topic of mine titled Best Graded Chess Tactics Course? Read his post, #5, and he lists several resources for tactics training. “... and the very best overall IMO is ChessTempo with customized SRS sets (subscription required)” – hicetnunc

Maybe the customized SRS sets that he mentions is the Spaced Repetition Feature?

Spaced repetition is a memory learning method that allows you to maximize recall, while minimizing learning time. Spaced repetition works by maximizing the time you spend on problems you have not yet mastered, while spending the minimal amount of time required to keep problems you know well in your memory. You can read more about spaced repetition at the Wikipedia Spaced Repetition Article. Spaced repetition learning can be applied to any new custom problem set you create. Instructions on how to use the feature can be found in the Spaced Repetition Section of the User Guide.

Spaced repetition is probably most useful when using pattern learning based custom sets which are built from large numbers of relatively easy problems. Spaced repetition can help learn and retain all problems in the set, without wasting time needlessly repeating problems that can already be done easily, and are not in danger of being forgotten.  Benefit: Optimize time spent on custom sets, by minimizing learning time, and maximizing recall.

Example of what I paste into Word, so I can then covert the problems to Kindle Flashcards.

Yes, SRS actually stands for "Spaced Repetition Sets" (of problems), so that's the same thing.

And yes, this is a very powerful training device (provided the sets are correctly designed).

I have used http://mnemosyne-proj.org/ to store tactical positions and review them in "spaced repetition".  I am thinking of writing a chess interface to this to make loading and reviewing the problems easier.

Thank you for the confirmation. I am very excited about this feature, as the repetition, in order to build pattern memory, is built into the program. I don't need to program anything!

Wow! A free flash card tool! Please keep posting your ways of practicing checkmates, tactics, and other things, for example, how do you practice endgames. I certainly didn't remember the important ins and outs of a King + Rook vs. King endgame until I did it over and over again using Fritz.

Mnemosyne Project

Efficient learning

Mnemosyne uses a sophisticated algorithm to schedule the best time for a card to come up for review. Difficult cards that you tend to forget quickly will be scheduled more often, while Mnemosyne won't waste your time on things you remember well.

Any advice on designing them?

I downloaded the program, and will experiment with it. I notice this:

Download scripts and plugins

Download scripts and plugins to extend your Mnemosyne experience.

It looks like the program can be tweeked, if you understand computer programming. Is this what you meant by writing a chess interface?

There's a user guide, and it has many options. Lots of stuff that can be customized!  Are you looking for how to best customize this feature, or what custom set of problems to work on first, second, and third?

When I was a memeber before, someone advised me to first beat into my head mates in 1 and 2. But that was what I needed most, as a beginner.

A computer program that I would really like to have is the puzzle maker on chess.com. Then I could save all of my tactics problems as puzzles, and just do them over and over again. I have yet to find something like chess.com's puzzle maker that I can download and use.

Just an idea of what settings are good, I guess it's mainly personal. But how often to repeat (I don't tend to fail problems I've seen recently), and whether it's best to just blitz easy problems for pattern recognition or useful for harder problems too.

I think it's best to train simple problems, like you do music scales.

for tactics i like to go through a book, like learn chess tactics by john nunn, then as soon as i finish it i go through it again, and maybe again one more time. while i do this i play on chesstempo to get random patterns and see how much has stuck.

i'm now trying to do more analysing of positions type of puzzles like the ones in the test section of the amateurs mind, or chess training pocket book, or test your positional play.

I like it, being a music teacher.  Some members could be going about Tatics Trainer in a wrong way, by only doing rated problems. It's important to also do unrated problems at different rating ranges, to ingrain ALL of the patterns. If someone is doing only really high rated problems, when will they ever see all of the important back rank problems, both simple and hard, for example.

I have yet to go through John Nunn's book, "Learn Chess Tactics", even once, let alone two or three times! What is your TT rating, if I may ask? I am sure my TT rating would finally stay in the 1300's, maybe even higher, if I knew every problem in Nunn's book.

I can zoom up to 1400 on Tactics Trainer on a really good day, but after a while, it settles back into the high 1100's/low 1200's. One thing I like to do with Tactics trainer is reset my history often. I appears that I get a really nice set of problems in the beginning. Heck. Here is one idea on how to practice with Tatics Trainer, for maybe a week. Reset TT in the morning, and do 25-50 when your brain is well rested. Record your rating. The next day, do the same thing. Reset TT and do 25-50 first thing in the morning, after your first cup of coffee! After seven days, look for your strengths and weaknesses, as in, what types of tactics did you miss the most. Crack open a book on that type of tactic, like removing the defender, and do a 1000 of them. Then go through the same tactics drill above, and see if your rating improves.

Dan Heisman says that improving in just this one type of tactic, removal of the guard, would greatly improve your overall chess.

Does anyone else have other ways in which they practice tactics, checkmates, endgames? Software programs? Books? How often do you repeat the same set of problems, or repeat the same book? 

 What book(s)do you feel are critical to completely wear out? Information that every chess player MUST know.

I went through some of them, and did em, and posted my time. But for now, good night.

I am going through "How to Reassess your Chess, 4th Edition" by IM Jeremy Silman. Very informative, it talks about positional imbalances and how you can still be ahead or behind when material is even. Extremely good book, review puzzles as well.

i am around 1400 on chesstempo. when i first got that john nunn book it was way too hard for me, but just staring at the puzzles then looking up the solution was pretty good for my chess i think. on my second run through i got most of the problems right, even when i couldn't actually remember them.

Have you tried using Game Editor because it looks much the same?

I now have a large text file of TT problems, any one of which I can load into the editor & play through. The only downside I've found is that you need to be online to use it but there must be PGN editors out there that do much the same thing & which you could download.

If you decide to try it out, this may help...

http://support.chess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/148/2/how-do-i-use-the-analysis-board--editor

get a grip guys - if you spent the time you spend writing forum posts actually practising - maybe you would eventually be as good as me.