Specific tactics will teach you that tactic better, but random tactics might teach you to spot them better... since in a real game you wouldn't know that a Fork instead of an Overload is coming up.
Specific tactics vs random tactics
Sort:
I was reading a Dan Heisman article once and he suggested going through basic tactical puzzles to the point that you no longer had to think to solve them.
I'd like to do this, but I have yet to find a source of such puzzles. All the sources I've found do it based on a rating.
@Blueemu, I agree that a combination of the two would be ideal, given that learning tactics in isolation is likely to encourage looking for them in isolation. Better to mix it up. That said, I'm curious whether or not increasing the difficulty of tactics by move (1 move, then 2 moves, then 3, etc.) or by rating (like in the case with chess.com or chesstempo) would be ideal.
@keelof, I would be interested to hear of a resource like that as well. I'm sure working through as many tactics books as possible would put me on the road, but then, the question would be "where should I start?"
I was wondering if I can get an opinion on working through random tactics puzzles vs working through specific tactics. For example, working through forks (1 move, then 2 move, etc.)
Which configurations have worked for you?