That's a lot of tactic problems. You said you dont really rush and it takes you longer than the average person, but then you also say it takes about an hour to do 50 to 100 problems. At that rate my guess is in one or two years your rating will probably stay about the same. How much has it gone up in the last one or two years?
I've done about 6700 problems in 4 years or so. Most of the time I do 5 per day but sometimes I only have time to do one or two. Just doing one can sometimes take 3 to 5 minutes because right or wrong, it still takes additional time to go through and see why the solution works and everything else doesnt. I cant imagine doing 50 in one day, and 50 in an hour? No possible way.
So every time I ask or search "how to improve your chess rating" I hear tactics tactics tactics. I am currently a sub 1400 player who desires to be 1600 or even 1800. Of course grandmaster would be nice, but baby steps folks. Baby steps. It is important to set small goals for myself that are achievable so that I can appreciate the improvement over time. Okay, so I tend to complain about playing lots of games and not getting that much better, but this time I'm going to take a new approach.
While of course, there is more to chess than just tactics. I am focusing primarily on tactics, because they are so important. My goal is to do 20,000 of these puzzles. Fortunately for me, I can do these for free on Chess Tempo and what is more? They are rated puzzles so you can see improvements there over time.
I take quite a bit more time than the average person on tactical problems. I don't really rush them so this will probably take longer for me than most people. It will probably take about a year and a half or so to reach 20,000 puzzles, but I will let the chess community know if it made my game great.
Things that I will focus on while taking these puzzles. Visualizing the moves before making them! This is important. In the past I would get a general idea of where to move before making the play, but now I try and visualize the pieces in advance and think about all the combinations before making the play. This way I learn from these puzzles instead of just mindlessly breezing by in a rush to do 20,000 puzzles. Usually takes me an hour to do 50 to 100 or so. I binge on some days and some days I don't do it at all. It may take a year. It may take longer. I do expect to improve though.
I believe chess will help with mental discipline. I have also gotten better at not being an asshole in the chat box to other players. I've gotten into the bad habit of being a dick to people that I'm losing to. I even removed the chat feature on my Iphone to prevent me from even being tempted. I really don't like losing, but I have got to learn to remain calm about it, because it is going to happen a lot when I play.
This last part is just a list for myself and possibly others that are focusing on tactics. I call these The 7 Tactics of Focus. Here it is:
1) The Pin
I included The Pin first, because it seems to pop up quite a bit especially at the beginning of the game. Near the beginning bishops are used to pin the knights to the queen and king quite often. Also it is a great tool for recognizing danger squares that are only an illusion. In the later parts of the game I can use absolute pins on the king which can really come in handy since the pinned piece is frozen in place. When I am actively looking out for pins I can see more opportunities.
2) The Skewer
The skewer is second, because it is the opposite of the pin in a way. The pin has the stronger piece behind it where as the skewer has the stronger piece in front. (Well sometimes not, but it makes it easier to remember this one as number two.) It attacks two pieces; the one in front directly and the one in the back indirectly. It is kind of like a form of a double attack which leads us to tactic number 3.
3) Double Attack/Fork
This one is really good for being able to spot out the classic pawn fork and also recognize the knights movements. This is also pretty helpful for noticing opponent threats on you. It helps with the bishop and the rook as well, but I feel like the knight one comes up more often and can sometimes be harder to spot.
4) Discovered Attack
Really great for positional plays. I may place my rook behind certain pieces based on the possibility of having a discovered attack later down the road. Another common thing with this is when the piece in front is somehow threatening the king. This makes it more of a concrete discovered attack. A lot of spots come up where you move the bishop attacking a pawn on the f7 square, threatening the king, while freeing up another piece to attack.
5) Remove the Defender
This one seems to come up with knights the most often. Especially when you need a specific square to make a powerful tactic of another kind.
6) Trapped Piece
Trapped piece belongs in the top 7 I believe. It is especially fun to trap a queen. It tends to happen more often when the piece is confined to less possible squares to move to. This is helpful when recognizing how this can be used against you. Sometimes when I have my queen on the other side of the board I have to be careful, because yeah. I don't want to trap myself.
7) Mate Threat
This one is last, but certainly not least. I put this one last because it is easy to remember the first and last items on a list. Mate threat has a whole subcategory of different kinds of mate threats. Being able to recognize the different spots make it easier to get a checkmate. Being able to checkmate your opponent is paramount because that is how you win the game! It is really helpful to know the common escape squares a king can move to when being checked by a protected queen and some other pieces. That way when those squares are blocked off later it is easy to recognize a check mate. A very dubious common mate threat is the back rank checkmate where the king is trapped behind his own pawns. Uncommon ones like smother mate aren't really as important since they don't come up very often, but they are still pretty cool to see.
I know there are more tactics, but these are the main ones imo and I like to have a specific group to focus on. Do you agree with this list? Also, do you think my 20,000 tactical problems will help me get far?