Too much tactics!(sick of study)

    Hello fellow chess enthusiasts,

I've been spending the good part of 2 hours a day on average over the last 8 months or so studying chess, mostly tactics/endgame and I feel like I've reached the saturation point, especially with tactics study.  Does anyone have any suggestions for how to spruce up my tactics study? 

I spent most of that time looking at << another site >> for my tactics study (I highly reccomend it!) but now I have at least half of the positions memorized where I can just see it and already know the answer.  It is also a lot less stimulating then it used to be, as is looking at diagrammed positions in general.  

At least with endgame study, I can study a concept a few times and I have the knowledge, but with tactics the payoff isn't as clear.  I still occasionally blunder material, mainly in situations where the opponent has an advanced knight.  

Feel free to comisserate/offer advice and heaped offerings of luscious fruits and nuts.   

Try the tactics trainer here at chess.com.   :)

Either that or just play a lot of corr. chess. Then you can find tactics for yourself and take as much time as you want. The positions will be different also.

I have been playing a lot of games against Fritz, I'm not sure how I feel about correspondence chess though. 

If you've been at it for eight solid months, perhaps a short break is in order.  When I feel I am getting diminishing returns on any project, I may just need to step back and let the material settle a bit.  If you have come to regard your study as 'work' that you have to force yourself to do, this might be something to try.  If it doesn't work, you can always go back to studying, and it only costs you whatever time frame you choose!  In fact you'll gain those two hours a day to do anything else you want.  After a time, you'll be aching to get back at the problems.  Don't get me wrong, a revision of other factors while maintining the project works as well, but given the level of study you have been maintaining I'm in no position to make those kind of suggestions, and I'm sure there will be plenty of other ideas in that vein.  My only study-related suggetion is to find a new book- the farther from your current study, the better.

For me though, sometimes a break from the material will allow me to come back in a week or a month and look at old material with a fresh perspective.  Perhaps my subconcious is absorbing or processing down the material, I don't know.  Despite all the theory that one can learn, I like to think that chess is still essentially a game that rewards creativity, and creative people need to recharge their batteries from time to time.  For me, eight months of serious, uninterrupted effort would leave me burnt out on just about anything.  That's just my personality I suppose, everyone's different.

Perhaps just spend 15-20 minutes a day on tactics now, and focus on a different area of the game, maybe focus on playing through annotated master games. The main thing is to make sure you are enjoying what you are doing otherwise you will just get burned out. Anytime you begin to feel like that switch to something else or even take a break for a little bit. Sometimes a break will help the mind have time to assimilate everything it has been taking in.

your website seems elementary. i use a tactics book (a simple paperback) with 1200 puzzles, all from actual games and computer checked.the benefit of a book is that you cant click forward one move, you must admit defeat by turning to the solution. tactics are perhaps the only application in chess that are at least equal to computers for study, although all of my study is derived from books. guess i'm just old fashioned

Thanks for the responses. 

It's not so elementary as it might seem at first blush.  I have yet to see a better tactics primer in print anywhere and in each section it progresses to some fairly complex situations.  It's also a free resource, which doesn't hurt at all.

I would augment time spent looking at chesstactics.org with solving the random problems the tactics trainer throws at you here, or on cts at emrald.net or chesstempo.net

If you are reaching a saturation point then perhaps the best solution is to spend time analyzing and annotating positions yourself.  Instead of plowing through 50 positions in 2 hours, spend 2 hours annotating a classic game or a single position.  Much more can be gained by appling the tactics and endgame study that you have gained to an actual in game position than reviewing over and over.  If you need a good book listing classic games and positions I would recommend "GM RAM".

Wow that is a lot of time. To become stronger at the board isn't always about studying and playing so much. 

Most strong players said they made a jump in strength when they started to look at their bad habbits and weaknesses, for example lazyness, diffiuclty to focus, playing too fast, playing too passive in the opening and so on. I am getting trained by an IM at the moment myself and improved most by fixing my bad habbits not by solving tactical diagrams. He advised me to study like 40 minutes or so a day.

if you are a strong player in end-game and strategy in general, but you still make simple blunders in general. It probabbly means you have a problem with calculating and/or visualization.

My advice in your situation is to buy a book on visualization, if you calculate every time the variant from start you easily make mistakes. With visualization you visualize the moves one by one and make it the current move in your mind.

or maybe you try to calucate too fast ? My trainer said it is better if you calculate in slowmotion because you will simple see more.

Another tip which a lot of on the board players use is to write down your move before you actaully  make it. This is a known technique to stop simple blunders.

Anyway my 2 cents ^^

I'd toss in a few options:

I ran up 50 rating points (OTB - USCF) after reading Richard Cheng's Practical Chess Exercises: 600 Lessons from Tactics to Strategy -- very useful and extremely light (physically!) so it's portable, so get a copy and some fresh air!

The Complete Chess Workout (Palliser) is a good and recent book with a mish-mash of tactics -- again -- get some fresh air!

Jacob Aagaard's Excelling at Combinational Play: Learn to Identify and Exploit Tactical Chances is another with recent games -- though all from the Sicilian opening, I think this book has a very good intro and explanations. Some of these are pretty tough and would require a board -- so back inside.  :)

Finally, another tome:  Imagination in Chess: How to Think Creatively and Avoid Foolish Mistakes by Paata Gaprindashvili is very difficult and (again) would require a board.

(I'm sure the first three of these have been checked by computers, so accuracy shouldn't be a problem.)  If you want, I can direct you to a digital copy of the last one -- pm me.

If you are truly burnt out (it sounds like you are), take a break! 

Or, instead of studying so much, PLAY!!

Good luck! -- ZV

As has been said study gm games.  This helped me with my enjoyment of my study time greatly.  First off you don't need to have time set out for "tactics" or "endgame time" or "opening time".  They are all related.  Some opening systems are based solely on getting to a slightly better endgame.  Some want large tactical fights. 

Second, it gives context to the different ideas and how you get there. 

When you look at the master game see if you can guess where each player is trying to direct the game.  When they get out of the opening what are the plans.  Can some of these plans be prevented by tactical means.  Are they trying to go into an advantageous endgame. 

Play through the moves and also try and recognize critical points.  In my mind this is one of the big keys in chess.  Once you have a fair understanding of general principles, openings, endgames and tactics you need to learn not only how, but also when to apply them.  In a game it won't say mate in 4 or white to move and win a rook.