what tactic book help u get over that hump

For me, The Encyclopedia of Chess Combinations put out by Informant was a big help. But honestly, no single tactics book has helped as much as good endgame books, game collections, or instructional books such as My System.

My take is that chess is a fairly individual endeavor.

What works for one person does not necessarily work for another. And what works for one person for one phase of their development will not necessarily work for that person at other phases.

This is my problem with all the people saying, "Study tactics!", "No, study endgames!", "Don't study openings!", "No, read My System!", "No, play the Ruy and the QGD!", "No, read Silman!", "No, read Dvoretsky!", "No, play OTB!", "No, get a coach!", etc. etc.

This is not a one-shoe-fits-all situation.

I give players a certain amount of credit that if they pay attention to their results and make adjustments as needed, they will find ways to improve.

I agree, there's no good way to know in advance that you need to analyse five moves deep, unless you're solving a "mate in 5" puzzle. 

Honestly, after about move 2 of a combo, I don't really count the moves while playing. I just work out as far as is needed, then look around to make sure I'm not missing something. 

And yeah, visualization is one of the most important skills an aspiring chess player can develop.

And why would that be?

Combo challenge goes by themes ie.overloading, overworked, key square, knight fork and is easy to follow worth the paper definitely

Combination challenge is a tough book

Okay, so I picked up 3 chess sets: a cheapie, a good magentic one, and a tournament set. Also the following books:

Chess Tactics for Champions, Susan Polgar and Paul Truong

Mastering the Chess Openings v.4, John Watson

Winning Chess, Irving Chernov & Fred Reinfeld

Capablanca's Best Chess Endings, Irving Chernov

ct-art 5.0

How to Play the Chess Openings, Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky

I mention this to show I wasn't trying to waste your time when I asked for help. I bought what I could find and afford. Thanks again.

Regards,

Lou

It's not exactly "tactics puzzles", but Yusupov's books have positions that require you to analyze many variations to find the right move. I have not read them, but I have seen some of them and I would choose something like that series if I were going to do serious study for an extended time.

https://www.newinchess.com/Yusupov_s_Award_winning_Training_Course_-p-2950.html

i have ct-art 4.0.it has 10 levels of difficulty and im on level 4. and i go through each level 7 times before i move to the next level. i play all my slow games on the Internet Chess Club and i remember being rated 1500 for my standard rating. now in 1717 on there and it was when i was doing the 7 circles that got me there. here is an article that was about me by Tim Brennan at tactics time. http://tacticstime.com/chess-tactics/gaining-173-rating-points-in-one-month/

I've been going through Yusupov's books. I started with the first one, and I can see why some coaches love it. 

Yusupov's first book has some wonderful, instructive positions. I can understand why it won awards. But the very first one is far too difficult for its target audience, beginners. There are chapters that would be challenging to strong masters in that first book!

But as a pedagogical device, it often fails badly. For example, the first section (in the first volume) on pawn endings gives a nice introduction to winning with 1 pawn vs a king. Then the test section is all over the place, with very few actually testing the material that was "taught" in the main part of the chapter. Most of the test questions in that chapter are studies by Grigoriev! 

Yusupov's books fail in three critical areas: 

• He admits he overestimates his audience in the Quality Chess blog 
• The organization of the books in English is not at all clear. The order is: Build Up Your Chess (Orange, Blue then Green), Boost Your Chess (Orange, Blue, Green), and Chess Evolution (Orange, Blue, Green)
• The tests at the end of each chapter do not always match the material that was presented. 

As a chess coach, I definitely will use many of the positions in his books, but I would never recommend his books to anyone rated under 1600. The more advanced books are really designed to help players in the 2000-2300 range.

so SmyslovFan and rtr1129, do you'll just read a lot of material to keep the study balanced. Do you'll rely more on studying Master Games or strategy books?

I play through at least one elite GM game a day (by following chessbase.com). When I was starting out, I studied well-annotated GM games and My System and other strategy books (including ones by Kotov).

It's absolutely critical that you play about as much as you study. It's ok to play blitz, but it's better to play slow chess. Regardless, you need to feel the competition and learn to fight out bad positions. 

my old coach Dan Heisman has what he calls '' the 4 homeworks''. he suggested that going over master game, doing tactics , and reading a ''talky book'' (like my system), and playing slow games is what i need to do to improve. but no, i wanted to do all tactics study . it costed me but hearing Smyslovan has motivated me to get back on the ball. i mean we all want to get to the next level. but it doesnt come free. thanks so much for opening up my mind and turning on the light. no more blitz chess for me. back on point.

I used to never do tactics with my coach, but when I decided I wanted to get better I started doing them again. Now ive gotten way better then I was 2 months ago

The important thing is to figure out which tasks push your ability to just beyond your current abilities. Once you figure out which tasks do that for you, then you do those things over and over. Heisman's 4 tasks are probably a good summary of what works for most people.

One additional thing that works for me is to think about how I think. I review my games or master games, and I ask myself, "how could I have thought about this position differently so that I could have decided to play the best move?" I'm not always interested in just cramming more chess knowledge into my head. Instead I want to figure out how to think about chess in such a way that I will arrive at the correct move most of the time. If you do that consistently, you will have no choice but to improve over time.

That's good rtr1129!!!👍

if tactics arent everything, why are all the class rated chess players games are decided by tactics? i mean yes when we go over master games, their games are decided by strategy. a lot of these books the guys on this post mention have arrived and these puzzles are tough. all the master players have mastered these 5, 6, and 7 move combos. why waste 3 mins figuring out where to place a piece and lose on next move to a 5 move combo that you didnt see evevn after you looked for it. in my opinion, simple strategy like develop every piece in opening and keep all your pieces active, will do.

Strategy and positional play are just our best guesses when there is no immediate tactic or combination available. Strategy and positional play try to put your pieces in the best position to allow for a tactic or combination to become available later on.

The reason why GMs are so good is because they not only have lots of stored tactical patterns, but they also have many stored strategical patterns. Studies have shown that what most good players do to a given position is to recall pattern positions.

Kasparov told that for a novice to improve, he must study a lot of games(not only tactics). What if you can't see  tactics? If you have little strategical/endgame knowledge then you will be, most of the time, clueless on what you will do.And since you are clueless on where to put your pieces properly, you will find yourself in a hard position where your opponent can deliver tactical blows.

Also having a good knowledge on where you will put your pieces will save you time on your clock.