What are best ways to improve tactics?

I need a lot of improvement in this area. I do five Tactics Trainer problems every single day. If I miss one, I go into analysis mode and make sure I can do it in my head without moving pieces before I move to another problem.

What else should I do? I bought Chess Tactics for Students by Bain. Anything else? Right now I am turn-based 1375 but my tactics on Tactics Trainer are only in the 800s...slowly increasing every week...

To get better at tactics, you need to do more tactics.

I've seen a lot of differing ideas on how many to do a day but I would think 5 may not be enough, though you also don't want to spend too much time either. I would say 15-30 minutes a day for sure, taking your time on each puzzle, not rushing them. If you can’t see the whole solution in 5 minutes, look up the answer, try to understand it and move on to the next one.

Part of tactical training is getting familiar with common patterns. You get that familiarity by seeing them over and over again in different positions.

Martin, your rating is high, so you are qualified to answer.  Thank you for your initial response.  Would you mind commenting further?

I joined chess.com fully now, so I am doing tactics a few hours every night.  I play against a computer (dedicated).  I have not ever found a tactical blow in my games.  

The tactics trainer uses a timer for a reason.  I am blowing through them, at 47% pass rate, hour after hour, trying to imprint my brain to recognize the pattern quickly.  

Should I, like the original poster, slow down, and try to get accuracy?  Or, will plowing through them quickly bring the imprint I seek?  I have now found some themes to be always correct, within just 3 seconds, as the pattern has stuck. 

I fluctuate 200 points a day, up and down, but overall, this fluctuation's high and lows are about 100 points up from previous work. 

Your thoughts?

and...thank you. 

You can always train tactics in different ways. I turn off the timer (the visual part, they are still timed) in TT here and normally try to calculate the whole line out to the finish (quiescence). It doesn't always work and sometimes I go with my gut and move faster. Something I need to work on myself.

I think at lower ratings, you will probably get the best benefit by taking your time and trying to solve the tactic without making any moves at first. As you get better, mixing it up will probably be beneficial, where you do some slowly and others quickly to try to train quick recognition.

I would think a discrete set of tactics might be best for that kind of training though. During the first or second workthrough, you do the slow, methodical solving. Later training, you blitz them out just trying to remember/recognize the patterns. Kind of like a 7 Circles (from de la Maza fame) but maybe not so extreme.

It's still a work in progress for me too. I still miss tactics in games and in tactical study. However, I can often see the seeds of a tactical position in games and use that recognition to try and calculate a solution; sometimes it is actually there

As to my rating, my Online should probably be about 150-200 points lower; I get way too many rating points from timeouts and people that resign in unclear positions (sometimes just quitting games that are completely equal for whatever reasons). 

My TT rating has also fluctuated a lot, though I do less here than I used to. I have too many chess irons in the fire and don't dedicate enough time to any of them for the most part. Most recently I've been working on the Polgar 5000+ tactics book, trying to solve them and then put them into a database I can carry around on my tablet for drilling. That is some very slow going.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. 

I also have too many "irons in the fire", and try, with varying degrees of success, to stick to two books at a time:

Game collections (covering the next move, a la Purdy and

Something on general improvement (Dan Heisman) 

(Right now, I am studying Chernev and will finish to move on to Magnus Carlsen's games.  He is an inspiration to me and am looking forward to him prevailing in Novemeber).  

This I do while I continue chess.com tactic training, and positions against the computer. 

On the weekend, I play actual games versus dedicated computer.  

I was always poor in math; rich in language, so I think the wrong side of my brain is in gear for chess and must overcome my lack of talent! 

thanks, again. 

I play tactics over and over.  When I get one wrong, then I'll check to see if I can visualize the whole tactic correctly.  It isn't as easy as one might think as I don't "see the objective" it could be checkmate, material advantage, draw or any number of things.  I erase my history and go over them again for the repetetive value of noticing patterns, with the reasoning, If I cannot see the correct tactic on the less complex ones, what purpose is served going forward to harder more complex ones.  That will happen automatically anyway, if I solve the easier ones.

Tactics have never been my strongpoint.  I agree with the above advice "you need to do more tactics".  I've been doing more and feel that it's making some difference.  Sure, I also have a problem with not concentrating and will overlook tactics due to that, so it's a never ending effort for me.

@Seamus - playing a dedicated computer as your main opponent may subconsciously get you into a bad habit of not looking for simple tactics enough since these machines don't blunder in the same way that humans do.  Though, on the other hand, your tactical mistakes are more likely to be punished.  It could in the longterm "tune" your thinking towards playing a computer.  I found that I'd often aim for an endgame since these machines are relatively weak in that respect, but this isn't a good general approach.

Google "Predator at the Chessboard" by Farnsworth and work your way through the entire website. Don't skip reading the text, even if you know the answer to the puzzle, as he provides you with a number of ideas on how to approach the same answer, some of which you may never have thought of.

Oh, and do lots and lots of puzzles, like everyone says.

Just seeing the correct solution isn't the same as remembering it...so what I do is after I finish every TT session I go back to the puzzles I've done list, go to the end and repeat the ones I failed to make sure I can still solve them correctly.