The trick of tactics is pattern recognition. It's obviously unlikely that you'll see the same position with the same pieces coming up on a board, so the trick is that you realize that in some (possibly disguised) way the same pattern might come up in your game again. In the TT these positions might lead you to win a piece, but in an actual game they're still worth it if they win you a pawn or even get you positional superiority. The trick is to have these patterns stored in your mind so that you'll see them in a game.
Tactics transfering into real games
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Well the natural question is whether you are developing your positional skillls to the same extent.
There are a couple reasons to do tactics. First, you are training your pattern recognition. You are unlikely to find a smothered mate if you haven’t seen it and know what it is.
Second, it helps train your calculation ability and you use that almost every move. But here is the thing. The way many people do tactics doesn’t help that all that much. What you want to do is at the beginning of each puzzle look for weaknesses that can be exploited. Then try to exploit it. If that doesn’t work, is there another weakness?
If you approach it that way, it WILL help in your games.
Second, it helps train your calculation ability and you use that almost every move. But here is the thing. The way many people do tactics doesn’t help that all that much. What you want to do is at the beginning of each puzzle look for weaknesses that can be exploited. Then try to exploit it. If that doesn’t work, is there another weakness?
If you approach it that way, it WILL help in your games.
And looking at your ratings, you are obviously better at this than you are giving yourself credit for.
The answer here is simple... understanding an opening is giving you the tactics as known good... your talents (or limitations) are defined in the variations of these first few moves... there is no winning sequence to chess, thus the game maintains it's success in the age of advanced technology. study know good positions and hopefully your own creativity will give you success or peril... happy hunting my friends
Remember the teachings of Steinitz.
1. Remember, the point of any opening is to develop the pieces and position them accordingly. At the same time, you need to prevent your opponent from accomplishing the same. You can get upper hand in two ways: develop quicker or prevent your opponent from developing.
2. Not only is it important to develop quickly, you also need to take care of your King’s safety. If your opponent is behind at development, you should delay him even more by creating threats.
You need to launch an attack as quickly as possible on the side of the board where he is the most vulnerable. Your opponent will need to focus on the threats you create and will not be able to finish development.
3. Another thing you need to pay attention to is the center. Depending on the position you need to occupy the center with either the pawns or the pieces. Strong pawn center will provide space. The piece center will give an opportunity for an attack.
4. You need to be careful concerning any pawn pushes. Always keep in mind that the pawns don’t move backwards and any unnecessary pawn advances will weaken position of you own king.
In our training program we pay specific attention on this very important element of chess: pawn pushes. Using concrete, well-analysed examples from Grandmasters’ play we deeply study when, how and why to use pawn pushes to create problems for your opponent and win games.
5. When developing pieces you have to have an exact plan of actions. You need to know what role each piece will play and where it should be positioned to realize this plan.
The difference between a novice player and a master is that a master develops chess pieces with a specific purpose while a beginner develops them just for a sake of developing.
6. The side who possesses an advantage must attack, otherwise he risks losing that advantage. The best way to come up with a plan for an effective attack is to identify a weakness in opponent’s position and to exploit it.
7. The defending side must deflect the threats, follow the plan of his opponent, predict his moves and look for a possibility of an effective counter attack. Keep in mind that defensive play is a much more difficult job than attacking play.
8. If a position is more or less equal the players need to maneuver their pieces to achieve an advantage of some sort and then move on to an attack. With a correct (best) defense the position should remain equal and the game should be drawn.
9. The overall advantage may consist from one big advantage or a multiple smaller advantages. When players of the same level play chess their goal is to obtain multiple small advantages that may ultimately result in winning the game.
In 21 Days to Supercharge Your Chess training program we give a step-by-step outline that can be used to accurately evaluate any chess position. It is easy to use and to remember, after just a couple times using it.
10. There are two types of advantages at chess: permanent and temporary.
The permanent advantages are:
– Material advantage
– Weak squares
– Passed pawn
– Weak pawns
– Open diagonal/file
– Bishop pair
The temporary advantages are:
– Development
– Position of pieces
– Center
– Space
When you possess a permanent advantage you need to take your time, do not rush and with a careful play you will ultimately win the game.
When you have a temporary advantage you need to attack as soon as possible, since there is a possibility for your opponent to recover if you don’t act quickly enough.
after reading that book for amateurs I feel like my point was overlooked
after reading that book for amateurs I feel like my point was overlooked
Piners wrote:
after reading that book for amateurs I feel like my point was overlooked
which book are we speaking about here?
i see people talking about pattern recognition and positional skills. Somehow i don't really believe the right path is to train tactics (pattern recognition) and then separately work on positional skills, and then hope both skills will magically grow together and transfer into your games. There must be some hidden element, connecting both into one. Somehow when i watch the best players, i get this impression they have found this connection between the dynamic of play (positional stuff and plans) and tactical awareness. Probably that is the difference between strong, talented players, and patzers - some people have developed a sense of geometrical harmony, and they are able to implement all the patterns they are storing in their brains into the games. As a musician i could talk about the analogy of practicing rhythmic skills, and working on harmony/music theory, and then connecting both elements into one to make some beautiful art happen.
well that is true. i think positional chess is more basic and more important than tactical prowess. you must know how to create positional pressure. how to attack weak points. how to get an advantage, how to get an edge. and then to press that edge.
Read Soltis, "The Innter Game of Chess: How to Calculate and Win". Basically what connects positional play and tactical play is noticing/creating weaknesses and exploiting them. Thus my response above. If you are just randomly trying moves and calculating whether they are good or not, you are playing chess in a very inefficient manner that is not at all well suited to people.
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
https://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/78289
In this problem, what weakness jumps out at you? First thing I saw was that you have a piece far advanced with only one defender and that defender is high value. How can you exploit that? I immediately started thinking about whether I could get that Queen to move. c4 doesn't work. Try a4. That works. I tried only two moves out of a possible out of something like 22 moves before I knew that white could win a piece in this position. You then might want to spend a little additional time making sure there is nothing better.
If there aren't weaknesses to exploit, there probably aren't tactics in the position (actually, no probably about it). Likewise, the same is true of positional considerations. You find the weakness, you exploit it. If you can't find a weakness, how can you create one? If you can't create one, where would your pieces be better placed to put pressure on your opponent?
If you approach tactics puzzles this way, then it WILL rub off onto your game in general. If your don't, not so much.
I can't help but notice but none of your most recent games were slower than 10 minutes, and the vast majority were faster than that.
Play slower games. Take more time to look and study the position.
The best intro-to-strategic play book I know of is "How to Reassess Your Chess"
Someone has to say it: tactics training is overrated. I suck at tt for the simple reason: if u put me in a game at a random position and ask me to play, I'll probably play like a noob unless I have significant time to analyze it. But when I'm in a game that I created, calculated, and carved myself, for some reason those same tactics that I might miss in tt I almost never miss in my games. TT has literally never helped my game (or pattern recognition for that matter) at all, only playing and watching actual games has
Here is another example tactics problem that illustrates what I'm talking about.
https://chesstempo.com/chess-problems/71570
I think i am moving closer towards the answer. this video by Sam Shankland has helped a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roQ1HoY6cA0
He is talking about how grandmasters use tactics to achieve strategical goals. In master games, we might not see fireworks and tactics winning a bunch of material instantly, however every move is backed up by concrete calculation, to achieve long term positional goals. This approach is kind of an eye-openener for me. When a player has come up with a concrete strategical plan (f.e. queen side expansion), he has to calculate candidate moves, and find the best way to make the plan work, while making sure the concrete tactics work out. So, even if there is no winning combination yet, in some variations we have to foresee it, to make sure our strategical plan is working out.
@hotspurjr, i play longer games, but on some other site. On chess.com i have lately only played in some live tournaments, to have fun. When trying to really dig deep, you have to spend a lot of time on critical moves, so even rapid is too short if you really wanna be in control of the position.
@madratter7 very good point. we all have to reasess the way we work on tactics and make it as efficient as possible - not just try all the candidate moves and find out the best one (there is not gonna be enough time for that in a real game, also, in games we dont know if there is a forcing tactic, so we would be spending way too much time checking out every move in every position), but keep the strategical conciderations in mind, and find out why the certain tactic arised in the game; except if we are trying to solve a made up etude, then its kinda different.
@alfiziro it seems that average players like me or you miss a lot of hidden resources in the positions, even a quiet opening can have some sharp variations, we dont even bother calculating. While we were taught to just develop our pieces, castle, occupy the center, often there are concrete moves, that lead to a crushing position early on. For me, its often hard to sacrifice a pawn, without seeing a clear compensation immediately. When im playing material down, i tend to feel much more pressure to make something happen, messing up more easily. I like having the control.
So, analysing Sam Shankland's approach;
1) come up with a strategical plan
2) calculate candidate moves, when tactics arise in the variations, find out which ones work in your favor and which dont
3) continue with your plan.
p.s. he also said something useful, if you have and idea, and your opponent prevents it, first thing you do is calculate what happens if you do it anyway - many times, there are resources, that lets you play it despite your opponent's reply
I really suck at blitz. But so many times I can recognize som tactic possibilties which has helped me a lot. I feel blitz is so much tactics while daily games is way more positional. It's for example easy to calculate 3-4 moves ahead to put a knight in a awsome spot, but in blitz those things is so easy to overlook.
Hi chess lovers, i've been studying chess for about 3 years now, this year i started doing a lot of tactics. i try to do them slowly and take my time calculating variations and seeing the moves in my head. Ive reached 2396 tactics rating on this other site. However, im not really seeing a big progress in my games - most of these tactics dont come up in my games. Maybe someone can expand on this and tell their story, how they implemented their tactical strength into real games.
Also, the most tactics you do in the puzzles are forced winning combinations. In my games, i often overlook some ways to win a pawn, or reach an interesting material imbalance - and this makes sense, there are very few studies that result in winning a pawn, or reaching a position with some positional pressure. Are there some puzzles, that teach you how to reach a position with a strong attack, or convert strategical advantages into pressure, that will result in arising tactics? or is all that just the positional aspect of the game, that has to be studied separately.
Hope you guys understand what my question is, and can share your experience and ideas.