Tactical Thought Process

Ok.  Tactics are really starting to $#%@ me off.  I need a good, reliable thought process for dealing with tactics.  I've seen Dan Heisman's thoughts on thought process but they are WAY too long.  There HAS to be a way to develop a thought process which finds all, or at least most, Forks, Skewers, Discoveries, and Pins, that is short.  Checks, Captures, and Threats isn't working so I need something else.  some form of redundancy.

What are some of your thought processes.

Thanks in advance

Is there a particular problem that you're having with the "checks, captures, threats" methodology, or do you just feel that it takes too long for a game situation?

If you're looking for an alternative method, I think it would have to start with "which pieces are hanging?" and "which pieces are insufficiently defended (defended only as many times as they are attacked)?"  That will clue you in on which enemy pieces are the most vulnerable to tactics, so you can look for a way to attack them with tempo, involve them in a double attack, chase away their defender, etc.  You should also pay attention to pieces that are guarded by other pieces rather than pawns, as a defending piece is subject to being overloaded or removal of the guard tactics.   

You could also look into some of Heisman's "Seeds of Tactical Destruction" from Novice Nook #5.  Chess Cafe recently put their articles behind a paywall, but you can download the free Novice Nooks here:

http://www.chess.com/download/view/dan-heisman-novice-nook-1-100

http://www.chess.com/download/view/dan-heisman-novice-nook-101-143

I don't know if you've seen this already, but if you're looking for a good resource on tactics, try the web version of Predator at the Chessboard.  I'm not sure it has exactly what you're looking for, but it's a pretty thorough review of tactics, so it definitely won't hurt.

http://www.chesstactics.org

I know about chesstactics.org.  I've been thinking about going back through it.  Unfortunately all of Dan Heisman's stuff is behind the paywall.  So that's fun.

Ok.  I want a quick, sure fire ways to find threats, especially checks.  I always seem to miss them.

Then I need ways to quickly find Forks, Pins, Skewers, and Discoveries.  Pretty much everything else are methods to pull off those four tactics.

Chess is a long, slow journey for those of us without the child prodigy gene.

So, I feel your pain.

LOL!

You develop tactical instincts (at least I did) by solving tons of tactical puzzles... not necessarily on chess.com... some of them here I noticed were odd (like capturing an undefended knight...).  I learned with Reinfield's 1001 tactics and combinations which divided puzzles into themes.

Anyway, if I'm having trouble getting my mind right to solve a puzzle, there is actually a process I use.  First I look for all undefended pieces and if there is a loose enemy king.  Then I note every non-pawn of mine on the board (sometimes they hide a rook or bishop far away from the action you know ;)  I haven't calculated anything yet, but already I should have associated some of my potential moves with some of their undefended pieces / king.

For example a bishop on a1 still eyes an enemy king on h8 even if there are many pieces in the way.  The tactic might involve clearing those pieces away and to expose your bishop's attack.

Puzzles aren't the same as games, but this is something you should be noting all the time during your game.  Which pieces are undefended, and what are the available checks.

Then, game or puzzle, my goal is to find a move with a threat... another way to say this is, my first test of a candidate move is, "can my opponent ignore this move?"  Tactical moves leave your opponent very few options (many times just 1).

Even if it looks crazy (like losing your queen for nothing) calculate the biggest threat or the move that gives your opponent the least number of options first.  This habit (combined with themes you learn from solving many tactical puzzles) makes players good tacticians in real games. 

Here's a few examples, find the biggest threat / the move that gives your opponent fewest options and then calculate to see if it works:

IIRC the knight forks 2 different squares in 6 different patterns... this isn't something you notice all of quickly in every position, especially when the fork may be a few moves deep.  What you need is a habit of calculating in-your-face moves.  Is that pawn defended?  So what!  If you capture it, what happens?  Especially moves like queen right beside the king.  Sometimes I find myself calculating a queen move like that when it's "obviously" bad... but it never hurts spending 1 second to check.

This would make your games very slow of course, but that's where having drilled many tactical themes gives you an eye for the good ones.

So I started going through chesstactics.org again, and taking notes.  I think one thing to do about knight forks is to do a color scan and see if any of the opponent's pieces are on the same color.  Then look for the Knight Ring, the octagon of 8 squares the knight can go to.  Of course this depends on where the knight is on the board, but still.

The site also says, and I didn't think about is, is that knights can always attack a square twice, and only twice.  So, when considering a knight fork I should always look at both ways said square can be attacked.  So the thought process for knights is starting to look like this; each time I'm looking for Checks, Captures, and threats I do a:

• Color Scan
• Knight Ring
• Check Both Moves

This topic is of interest to me, too, especially since when I play the computer on this site at the ~1600 level, I keep losing to tactical shots. It's like I'm starting all over with playing computers again, I suppose since this chess program is stronger than most others I've used, so it's looking a little deeper than I'm used to needing to look.

I don't have much practical advice at this time, since I'm going through the same issues. Here are some of my thoughts, however: (1) I do *much* better in openings I know. When I know a specific opening, I know better which tactics to watch for, and which squares are target points, so that helps to cut down on the number of possibilities to consider. For example, in the Caro-Kann as White I kept moving my QB out too early, which left my b2 unprotected, so I kept falling for ...Qb6 that attacked b2 and messed me up badly. Once I learned that weak spot in that opening, I knew to watch for that vulnerability. (2) There is probably a good way to categorize or list tactics, and certainly people have tried, but offhand I don't know where such information is. It would be nice, for example, if instead of just saying to watch out for forks in general, if the topic were broken down into knight forks, pawn forks, and more. (3) I suspect what practice does, which is what everyone keeps mentioning, is to *subconsciously* engrave indicator patterns in our memories so that we recognize when those situations occur, without having to *consciously* memorize long checklists. For example, if Black's bishop and knight are getting overly aggressive in the opening, and are separated by one empty square on the 5th rank, that's a situation that should look familiar since often White has a pawn fork in store for those two pieces.

To develop good tactical insight you need to know the details of a position.  

Stuff as simple as recognizing material balance, weak squares/pawns, good and bad pieces.  Where you are strong or weak on the board.  Do you have a development advantage?  These are just the beginning of the types of questions you should be asking yourself.  But, once you start seeing what the KEY details of the position are BEFORE you start thinking about moves then tactics will start to jump out more.  

No matter what you are doing if you don't have an objective then you don't know when you have reached your goal.  This is the reason you do a mental checklist of the specifics and THEN start to go through checks/captures/threats in heisman style(imop) if you are presently having trouble with tactics.  

Where is the checks/captures/threats in Heisman style explained? A specific book of his?

His novice nook columns on chess cafe.  Couldn't really tell you a specific one-its been a long time since I looked at any of his stuff

The problem with Novice Nook now, is that its ALL behind a pay wall.  I do love what dan heisman says, but we really can't read it anymore.

Well, the new stuff is behind a pay wall.

Pre 2012 Chess Cafe archives:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141006073848/http://chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm

Um, I guess you haven't tried clicking on any of those links recently.

This is the best I can do for the Wayback page of Heisman's Novice Nooks links (generally, it won't work for the post-2012 links):

https://web.archive.org/web/20140619151347/http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Novice_Nook_Links.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20130821190145/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/real.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20130918170920/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman10.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20131006095444/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman14.pdf

Everyone,

Thanks for the wayback links for Dan Heisman's stuff.  I am glad you can at least get the older stuff.