Tactics Training, how much does it help?

I have done a lot of tactics trainer and chesstempo lately, and I think it has helped a little bit, but it hasn't made me a much more powerful player--I still make mistakes that lead to forks or checkmate or some pin I wasn't expecting, but usually I only realize these post-mortem or right after I made the wrong move.

So I'd like to ask, if you primarily study to become a better player, by doing tactics or studying positional play? Studying other expert games? Studying endgames and openings? Simply buying and reading more books?

Has tactics helped you significantly? Perhaps you started tactics and jumped up 100 rating points, tell me about it.

Also, it would be very helpful, if some of you can share your tactics rating on chesstempo or tactics trainer, maybe there's a correlation to how strong you are, maybe it has nothing to do with it.

My rating: ChessTempo: 1720, Tactics Trainer: 1656

Thank you for any help!

Funnily enough, I think I've lost a couple of timed OTB games on the clock because too many tactics exercises earlier that day created a kind of "white-to-play-and-win" mentality.  I ran down my clock looking for "the winning move" in positions where there wasn't one.  :)

I'm sure it's generally helped my chess vision nonetheless.  Sure, not every game features a decisive forking attack or a smothered mate, but often I find that tactical threats are just as likely to direct a game as to outright decide it.  In other words, maybe I make an objectively good move that improves my position, long-term, and in the planning process I recognize that tactical possibilities effectively undermine what might otherwise be troubling replies from the enemy.  It's not that I expect my opponent to fall into tactical trouble; I fully expect him to see the danger.  But the tactics are a big part of what safeguarded my move and advanced my game.  I like what Yasser Seirawan once wrote:  "Tactics are the guard-dogs of strategy."

...But wait.. we weren't talking about whether or not tactics helped in chess; we were talking about tactics training...  But yeah, I still think it helps.  On a good day, thanks to tactics training, I think I have a more educated intuition about which positions are tactically 'fraught.'  That alone can count for a lot.

I do slow tactics at Tempo and timed ones here.  My rating at Tempo has fallen from >1800 to something in the high 1600s over the last few weeks.  (I took a break from tacticizing over much of March and it really shows...) 

My approach to Tactics Trainer is to reset my history and ratings deviation daily and then do a quick 20-50 problems to see how high I can get.  So unless I forgot to reset it last time, I assume my TT rating is 1200.  My all time high in TT is 1899.   Yup.  Couldn't get that one more point.    >_<

It helps you memorize mating patterns. It is a very good learning method.

I see... That's been my problem, trying to "create" these tactical situations. I can never truly understand positional play, when I look at GM games or whatnot, I don't understand why they make certain moves, in many games I find my time going down as I don't know what to do next because there is no available tactic to play.

I think it has helped though, I sometimes get a quick checkmate or quick fork, even sacrificial ones more often than before. It's very satisfying to see myself go for a checkmate in a 1-minute game with 10 seconds on the clock, while my enemy has a similar checkmate on my kingside, and I am quickly able to determine, my checkmate will work and his won't.

However, these situations are rare. They happen a lot more in bullet/blitz, but in online-chess, I don't see a single tactic usually, everything moves so slowly and no one is attacking. That's when I'm lost------I make either waiting moves, or moves that look ok, but don't actually accomplish anything.

Tactics is king at this level.  Practicing tactics every day is a must, in my opinion.

I don't agree with those who say that "tactics puzzles aren't important because in a real game nobody's gonna whisper in your ear that mate-in-five is possible" (or whatever), as by doing tactics puzzles over and over you slowly become an expert at identifying when tactical shots are available in a game.  You start to recognise key elements in a position which suggest a tactical possibility.

And this is one of those things you can only really learn by doing.  Somebody could lecture you all day long about certain key features in a position which suggest that a tactical shot is present, but these empty words aren't going to mean much at the end of the day.  But solving thousands of problems on Chess Tempo, on the other hand, is a different story entirely.

In that case could I recommend the book Winning Chess Strategies by Seirawan.  It's a very good book, and also it doesn't require a high rating to read it.  :)

My tactics rating is in the 1200s.... my chess rating (corresp) is over 1600. On the other hand, I think I improved a bit recently because I have been practicing tactics regularly.

I believe tactics training is meant to help:

- visualize / address board vision deficiencies.

- Calculate forced lines till quiescence more accurately.

- Build a pattern database in the head that will make it easy to spot motifs in actual games.

- Think in chunks during actual games when calculating. (takes less time, more accuracy)

There's evidently the strategic side of the game and while that deserves attention as well, you'd expect any decent player to have enough tactical muscle to hit hard when it counts as well as dodge a punch before learning the finer arts of where and when to hit.

I was actually looking at that book by Seirawan on amazon today, I'm considering buying it.

Also, arbitrary, as a, pretty-much 2k player, what are you rated on tactics trainer or CT?

I agree that tactics does help, but on occasion, I am completely positionally defeated, until I finally make a tactical error because of the limited choices caused by the positional play of my opponent.

----- Here's a good example---

Let me show you a simple game I played against a 1600. I know this is not the best example, it is a 1-minute bullet game. If you look closely, you can see my opponent consistently pushing pawns and gaining position and I have no options but to retreat. Finally I decide to go for his king, but it's clear I don't know how to break through his king-defense, I was hoping a tactic would show up--- my knight and pawn moves show I am lost. (Obviously we both made mistakes, and my last blunder with the pawn move destroyed me, but I was running low on time and didn't know what to do next, my opponent still had 20 seconds on his clock)

Being down 20 seconds in a 1 minute game is worse than being down 2 queens :p

As for an answer to your OP, you already got good answers, I don't have anything to add :)

My Chess Tempo standard rating is currently mid-1900 after a bad spell, but my best active rating is ~2080.  (I haven't done many Tactics Trainer problems.  My rating there would probably be lower because of the time pressure.)

I found tactics training a huge help. The site 'chessmagnetschool' has themed training in increasing level of difficulty. Chess tempo standard is also helpful for its arbitrary positions

I've found studying tactics to be very helpful.  My Chess tempo standard is mid 1900.  For pattern recognition I study much easier problems and for things like standard on Chess tempo I get to work on my calculation abilities as well. 

I see tactical motifs or the threat of them all the time in my games and it enables me to avoid losing material and to win it.  Usually with simpler tactics, you either see them immediately, or you don't because it comes down to simple pattern recognition.  So if you notice that your most recent games featured you missing back row mates, you can drill back row mates.  Or if you notice that your games have shown that you keep missing knight forks, you can work on knight forks.

  If you are going to train that way it can be helpful to own a good chess program to help you identify your blunders/missed tactical shots and then do targeted training to address those weaknesses.

Noooooooooooo.....

FWIW, after move eight it looks like your opponent's pawn on d6 would have been an excellent target. You could have attacked with the bishop on d7 and fought for control of the center. Of course it's easy to see things when it isn't your game and you're not under time pressure.

@happyfanatic, yes I see maybe targetted training can help. But I don't usually notice a single pattern, I make all sorts of mistakes sometimes. But I believe my true weakness is positional play.

A lot of times I lose because I make a hastey decision, and I immediately see how it is going to destroy me (but too late). These usually occur because I play time-pressure games. But I make more in-depth mistakes, either miscalculation of steps etc. Let me give you a few examples (sometimes they end up being two-three moves deep):

Another greedy blunder for me:

Here's me just being careless:

My rating hovers around 1600, My TT rating around 1900.

I dont know what that proves. What I find interesting is that most seem to have a higher TT rating by 200-300 points, but many have a lower TT by the same amount. Is this a reflection if style of play? I just don't know....

I think I noticed a pattern, slumps in my play coincide with slumps in my TT rating.

eXeCuTe the positions you just showed had the very common tactical pattern of two pieces with a square in between with the threat of a pawn fork, and two back row mating situations.

If your pattern recognition of those themes had been more developed you might have instantly seen the danger, maybe even in time pressure and avoided the loss. 

Of couse there are lots of different types of tactical blunders that players make but if you keep a record of your games in a database and blunder check them for weak moves(+1 or more change in evaluation) I guarantee that you will see recurring mistakes. 

The consequences of a weak positional move are far less severe then a tactical blunder so even though you say that you are more concerned with your positional play, you'd be better off focusing more of your attention on improving your ability to avoid making costly blunders.

Obviously it is difficult to come up with good tactics if your position is not so good. Strong players play well both positionally and tactically. being at a similar developmental level as you I am working through 'Chess Strategy for Club Players' (the road to positional advantage) by Herman Grooten. You can see a review at 'Chesscafe' It was their chess book of the year 2009. Looking at strategy is strengthening my game overall although approaching it requires quite a bit of effort.

I would think they would help with pattern recognition.