ChessTempo has defensive tactics missed with attacking tactics in its 'mixed mode'. They won't tell you what's in the position, so you'll have to figure it out by yourself.
During your game, a good rule of thumb is simply to ask yourself "what does my opponent want to do ?" after he has played.
Stand up.
Walk over to your opponent's side of the board.
Look at it from his perspective.
??? profit
@hicetnunc can I set it so that it's only defensive tactics? That would be ideal.
Because the thing is, again, I can usually see my offensive tactics against the opponent, but I have problems with missing stuff when I am defending.
Stand up.
Walk over to your opponent's side of the board.
Look at it from his perspective.
??? profit
I have the same problem, and thats how I fixed it. Seriously.
@Lugialord What if I played an entire game standing behind my opponent and making moves from right behind him? There's nothing in the rules that says I have to sit in front of him. Maybe we should try it tomorrow, lol
In all seriousness, how about I fix the problem instead of finding a funny workaround, haha
Your rating(s) seem good enough to me that when you do solve puzzles, they're not super simple.
I practiced this skill when solving puzzles, by making sure my answer was correct before making the first move (like you would during a game). I feel like most of the time this means you're looking for the opponent's best moves. I mean, especially your first move is usually pretty easy, make a capture or a threat for example, then it's all about finding how the opponent can work against your plans.
And it just sort of carries over to a real game, even in a non-tactical situation, I'll look for how they can screw up my desired move.
Don't know if that will help you or not.
There is a new book out that might help you: "The Chess Tactics Detection Workbook." You play through a bunch of games from players rated from 1100 to 1700 and try to spot the tactics that either side missed. You are not given any clues as to on which moves they missed tactics.
As for software, I think CT-Art will let you flip the board on any position. And of course, many books will ask you to solve for black with black on the top half of the board.
Yeah my USCF rating is 1840, so I'm not really hanging pieces, but I am missing combinations against me.
In the book "Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book" there are some puzzles scattered throughout that will give a problem like that. "In this position white played Nb3, is that safe?"
Some puzzles give a series 3-4 moves (from a real game between titled players) and then ask "what did each player miss?" so there's a tactic in there for one of them, on one of the moves, but you don't know when or where.
There aren't hundreds of these, but it might help some.
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It's odd to me you're over 1800 and have problems seeing tactical opportunities against you. I'm curious what your thought process is like. What I mean is, are you sitting there and you get that feeling you're about to miss something? Or do you think to yourself "I really need to make sure there are no tactics against me here" but then they happen anyway? Or are you just completely forgetting to thoroughly check sometimes?
My son's USCF rating is 1805 and his tactics rating here is above 2200 and even he overlooks some of the tactics in the "Chess Tactics Detection Workbook." Though the games in the book were played between weaker players, the tactics they missed were not necessarily easy ones to find.
Do you tend to make those errors when you move quickly or when you think for a long time? When you have advantage/initiative or when you are already struggling? I think each of those is a different type of error and calls for a different cure.
BTW, tactical errors are quite common at our level and a bit above it. In my recent tournament games, opponents rated 1900-2100 made at least one serious (i.e., worth at least a pawn) tactical error every other game.
Chess Tempo will do what you want. With a premium membership you can search problems and create your own problem sets.
@hicetnunc can I set it so that it's only defensive tactics? That would be ideal.
Because the thing is, again, I can usually see my offensive tactics against the opponent, but I have problems with missing stuff when I am defending.
No you can't. But I think having a mix is actually a better training, as in some positions, you must assess if your opponent's threats are stronger than yours or not. Just like in a real game.
Yeah I do feel like this is an unusual problem for a player of my rating to be having. But what's scaring me more is that I feel that this is a problem that usually plagues older players (just missing opponent's offensive tactics due to oversights) but I am still young at 16 years old, and I figure my oversights will only get worse with age as they seem to do with everyone else.
@hicetnunc I would agree with you but I really want to train this specific skill.
Are there any sites that have a setting of "backwards board" or something so that you can solve tactics from the losing side's perspective?
There is also this book by Heisman : looking for trouble, which offers puzzles where you must identify your opponent's threat(s)
Chess Tempo allows you to flip the board if you want to do tactics that way. You can also create custom problem sets to customise the types of problems you train.
I figured out today that perhaps my biggest chess problem is overlooking my opponent's tactical opportunities on my half of the board. I see my tactics against my opponent perfectly well. It's just when I am defending and my opponent has tactical opportunities, I frequently miss them.
I have heard the advice before to solve tactical problems from the other side (the defending side) of the board as a way to solve this. Is there any chess tactics interface that allows the player to do this, or any chess tactics interface centered around defensive tactics or spotting the opponent's tactics? I lose so many games like this that I think I would be at least 50 rating points better if I could iron this out a bit.