How to study tactics in chess.com? How did you improve TT from let's say 1000 to 2000 or higher?

I am still not sure what is exactly the strategy I should follow when doing the TT. Some authors tell me to play rather quick the exercises and learn from the mistakes, improving by learning a lot of new patterns. Other people say that it is better to calculate accurately everything and not try to guess the moves.

I know that some people here are very strong in tactics. What do you suggest? Can you share with us your experience over the years? Perhaps some of you can tell us if you began to solve the exercises with much more efficiency after you began to follow a certain strategy that  worked for you.

Something else: a rather strong player told me that it would be better to train tactics first with a book to learn the main motives, etc. I am using now the book 

"Chess Tactics from Scratch: Understanding Chess Tactics" by Martin Weteschnik. I bought once this book (in German), but I did not like it at all. (I hate chess books where the diagrams do not show if white or black to play, and the language was very technical). Now I bought an English version from Forward Chess, and it is much more fun to read, and the examples are really amazing. The book is not really a typical work on tactics, it is more an attempt to explain the elements of the different combinations (but there are also something like 300 positions to train).

This seems to make sense. 80%, means you have to spend a lot of time to figure out what to do, something like 10 to 20 minutes for complex positions.

With tactics training you need to improve your pattern recognition and calculating ability. For you to improve your calculating ability, solve harder problems. For pattern recognition, solve easy problems. I suggest that in tactics trainer, before you make a move make sure you already know  all the winning moves. By doing this, it will make you more accurate and improve your calculating ability. Try as hard as possible in finding the solution. If you can't find the answer after trying in 20 minutes only then look for the answer.  Don't worry if there are problems that take you too long to solve. As you get better at calculation and pattern recognition, your speed at solving many positions with improve.

For tactic book, try Chess Tactics for Champion by Polgar. What i like about this book is diversity of theme. Not only it contains puzzles like pin,fork or mate problems, this book also contain defense puzzles and counter move puzzles. This book also shows nice combinations by great players. This book really improve the tactical ability of my nephew.

It is weird, but I often begin well, but after one or two mistakes I begin to get more and more impatient. This happens especially if I am almost sure about a move, but there was an obvious refutation to it. I have somehow to change my attitude to the exercises, taken more time to solve the problems. 

I try to take my time and try hard not to move until I see the whole line, instead of just "guessing" the first move and stumble over the solution. I wouldn't care too much about the rating.

Also, if there is an instructive pattern, I go over it a couple of times in order to memorize it.

Yeah, take your time at solving the problems. Don't worry about solving it fast. Don't worry about your tactics rating. What is important about tactics training is how it actually reflect and improve your actual matches. I have seen many players here at chess.com that have more than thousand problems solved at tactics trainer, but their  blitz, rapid etc rating are still low. Maybe majority of them does not calculate all the moves when they are solving. Also don't ignore thinking process to lessen blunders. It is no use if you solved many problems at tactics if you have habits of not looking at the whole board, not always studying your opponent's last move, not always checking if there is a tactical drawback before you make a move, you will still commit many blunders. 

Another "trick" is trying to find out what the problem is about, e.g. king safety, hanging piece, pawn breakthrough etc... Sounds obvious, but it is often helpful to reflect on that first.

I have one the books written by Lazlo Polgar, the father of the Polgar's sisters, It is a huge book with more than 5000 exercises, I worked for while with it (it is one of the reasons why I can see smothered mates immediately in tactics and in games). 

yeah that is  a great book at improving mate pattern recognition and calculating ability. the only problem i can see with that book is that it only contains mate problems. it does not contain tactics that wins material. There is a danger if you are only solving mate tactics. It can make you one dimensional at looking tactics that you might be only looking at mates and not tactics that win material. 

That is why i like Chess Tactics for Champion by Susan Polgar. What i like about this book is the diversity of themes. Not only it contains puzzles like pin,fork,discovery,removing the guard or mate problems, this book also contain defense puzzles and counter move puzzles. This book also shows nice combinations by great players. This book really improve the tactical ability of my nephew to find tactics that wins material or matting combinations. 

I know this: this piece is undefended, can I win it? The queen seems to have few squares to escape, can I win it? Can I sacrifice something to open this line for my rooks? etc. My main problem is with complex positions, with a lot of figures in the same corner. I hope that the the new book on tactics I bough can help me to understand better such positions. Martin Weteschnik believe that you can solve tactics not only by solving problems but by paying attention how exactly different tactic motives work. 20 years ago I found the book too technical, but now I think it is exactly what I need. 

All I did was watch various YouTube videos to learn all the different tactical themes and then did around 100 puzzles a day for a year straight. When I failed a puzzle I would replay it several times in a row to make sure I understood the pattern. 

I like the advice of working of focusing on certain motifs first like how books do it. Also you may want to set a certain amount of time to try to figure out the solution as best you can before playing a move. Like 5 or 10 minutes per puzzle otherwise you may spend too much time trying to figure out everything (has happened to me a few times). Also when you get the puzzle wrong try to understand why by either reading the comments and/or checking out the analysis board of the puzzle.

I would just recommend doing puzzles outside of chess.com to familiarize yourself with certain tactical motifs. I recommend using Zenon Franco's Giant Chess Puzzle Book because it has puzzles for beginners all the way to grandmasters. Me myself, I have seen tremendous improvement in my tactics rating this way as well as my otb rating

My blitz rating and tactics trainer rating usually correlate well with each other. As I get stronger in one I should improve in the other since they both depend on the ability to notice possible tactics and calculate quickly. All the experience from blitz usually makes it easier to notice possible moves or tactics right away and then calculating is usually not that difficult when you already have an idea what is going on.

I think that is a great question. I went from about 1000 to about 2200 in 3 years because I did one simple thing. I went slow. Whether it's tactics trainer, over the board games, or anything else the slower you go the better you will do. I know I get a lot of tactics wrong because I dont spend enough time figuring them out but I always remember chess is just a game, so it doesn't matter if I spend 5 seconds or 5 minutes figuring it out. What matters is that I enjoy it. I always compare any recreational activity to golf. Of course it's challenging, but what is by far more important is that you enjoy it and you can share the experience with your friends.

Okay, I got it, take my time and try to enjoy. Amazing the progress you did in three years. My level in tactics correlates rather well with my level in daily chess, so I hope to come closer to you guys if I spend more time doing tactics. I will try first with the Weteschnik's book and I will go on with tactics here. I will try to make a club to get some people doing tactics with me, using the tips you gave above.

The book I am talking about is not only on mating. I even don't know the title of it, as I took took away the cover. The book is huge, I was not able to carry it with me, so I separate the pages to take only single chapters with me (with the solutions). The book has really everything, also strategical sacrifices and so on.

 Renato, you might find this bloke's writings of interest:

http://empiricalrabbit.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/bain-experiment.html

He has really put a lot of thought into how to learn tactics

Thank you very much, I will study the site.

Go here and watch the whole series by IM David Pruess

https://www.chess.com/video/player/four-exercises-to-become-a-tactical-genius-part-1