Yes, if you spent 30 minutes on tactics and your play deteriorated, you should never look at a tactics book again.
Tactics puzzles is the way to go?
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lol storm
Jul 8, 2013
0
#4
no i am being serious.
it was not just this one time.
EVERY time i do complicated tactics, i try and see everything through that lens causing me to make errors.
now when i read strategy text, it has the opposite effect and i am normally either able to win in the middlegame or stear the game towards a winning endgame. even if the endgame is not winning, i tend to win because of the strategic bent of mind.
for me its the exact same opposite... when i do strategy i play really really bad. Even though its good information nothing bad or anything like it. But always my game becomes a misery afterwards.
when i do tactics, any tactics trainer here, i even get position against my computer where he has to sac a queen to not get mated. (on really easy ofc)
I think the correct answer is just that you need both.
If you think of tactics as "piece safety", it seems logically indefensible that learning how to keep your pieces safe and win material from your opponent actually makes you a worse player.
Implementing a strategy can only work if you know that the moves are safe. It's good that you can steer the game towards a won ending or middlegame, but ultimately you need to gain material in order to win, and to find the fastest way to gain material, you need to be strong at tactics.
I guess if you are establishing a stranglehold, that is good, but if you miss winning a piece because you are busy being strategic, that's just bad chess. As IM Daniel Rensch says, you have to look at the board and play what the position demands. Tactics and strategy are two equally valid ways of doing that, but there's always one best move and your job is to find it.
gpacx wrote:
I think the correct answer is just that you need both.
If you think of tactics as "piece safety", it seems logically indefensible that learning how to keep your pieces safe and win material from your opponent actually makes you a worse player.
Implementing a strategy can only work if you know that the moves are safe. It's good that you can steer the game towards a won ending or middlegame, but ultimately you need to gain material in order to win, and to find the fastest way to gain material, you need to be strong at tactics.
I guess if you are establishing a stranglehold, that is good, but if you miss winning a piece because you are busy being strategic, that's just bad chess. As IM Daniel Rensch says, you have to look at the board and play what the position demands. Tactics and strategy are two equally valid ways of doing that, but there's always one best move and your job is to find it.
+1
I picked up a tactics book(anthology of chess combinations) yesterday. I spent approximately 30 minutes on 4 positions and got 1.5 correct. After this, my play deteriorated.
When I read strategy books, my play increases.
Yet, a knowledge of tactics is considered mandatory for improving the level of chess.
What should I do? Should I never look at a tactics book again?