Absolutely meaningless puzzle achievements - 100 000 puzzle points

Definitely not more than +300. I was only barely winning most of my games. I don’t have a problem with low time (Even though I either play too quickly or too slow). And I already play rated, but on an trainings account. I’ve also beaten an 1600-blitz player on that account. I would love to tag my trainings account but chess.com somehow often bugs when I try to do it. I should probably make a bug-report in Beta or something…

Also, I already told you that I struggle with my thinking process, didn’t I? If not, now you know. I usually don’t even calculate ahead or I make only brute-force calculations (Like I brute-force when doing tactics). So I don’t really use my chess knowledge during games. And so I struggle with looking at my opponent’s moves / plans. And this makes me so bad at defensive puzzles. Just saying RANDOM KING MOVES.

Btw, I really want to hit 10 million puzzle points. I would loose a lot of rating tho… Do you think it’s worth?

I do not know about the 10 million puzzle points. If it means a lot then why not. I doubt it will improve your playing that much.

99% of players struggle with these things that you mention, especially on how to think and calculate. My coach calls it the ‘algorithm’. In theory it is simple:

0. Try not to spend too much time when the move is obvious, but still think quickly.

1. What is the direct threat of your opponent’s move? Do I care about it?

2. What weakened, if any, in the opponents position due to that move?

3. What should I do? Checks Captures and Threats and if nothing there, what move improves my piece activity the best.

4. With more forcing moves, or candidate moves, evaluate to the end of the forcing line. Pick the one which seems to result in the best position

5. Blunder check in general and what got weakened in my position due to my move? Do I care?

6. Make the move

In theory, very simple and does not require grandmaster level thinking, and when applied serves very well, but in games I often simply get sucked into the gameflow and make stupid move :-)

The best way to learn this and practicing it is study —> play —> analyze —> fix —> repeat, I know that. In that case, I would probably mainly try to ask myself: „How can I improve my pieces?“ until I have sharpened this skill to a certain extent.

Next target: 200,000 ?

Yeah. This is the way. Though I have also learned that what I considered analyzing my games was rubbish. I essentially looked at game review and saw: ok, that was the best move, that was a mistake because of x,y,z. Not useless, but dubious for learning.

My coach instructed me to analyze the games without the computer, or at computer with just the evaluation (not move lines showing) showing. Then try to figure out why your move was bad exactly, and what move you should made instead, and try to then ask what should I improve or think differently to find these moves later on. Only use the computer lines if you simply can’t figure it out. Takes a lot of time, easily can spend 30 minutes on single game.

And about puzzles… I will probably do it. Getting multiple puzzles right is a great way to get more and more points. And at some point you will get multiple thousand points for every solved puzzle, even though 100 of puzzles solved in a row are required. But I am an expert with solving puzzles fast. I wrote in my profile I want to hit 30 Million too. I don’t know, I think this is a bit too much and I should probably delete it. Could you try to predict my highest streak I will have at the end of this? I am curious what you think…

Yeah, I started doing this too (In case I DO analyze my games…) Only focusing on 2 or 3 critical points of the game is good enough and can reduce the time.