Originally posted by cmsMaster I think the hardest to find, and potentially most promising type of chess tactic would be "White to play and improve his position". You get these oppportunities more than anything (including tactics) and yet they are very rarely given.
This is exactly the point.
While tactics exercises have their place in developing pattern recognition they should not be the be all and end all.
Tactical exercises are great as supplemental study aids. I compare it to doing musical scales if you study an instrument. They will only get you so far. Analyzing your own games, studying master games, and basic endgame technique will take you much farther than a constant diet of tactics.
For a nice take on de la Maza's book, check out Jeremy Silma's review:
Intensive Tactics has much better tactical puzzles but i don't like the chessbase interface as well as ct-art. One thing i like about renko's selections is that they are all from real games, no compositions from the ones i have done so far . the 2nd in the series is meant to be even better according to steve lopez at chesscafe http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1985
Gorgar, the sparring mode is fine, as long as you use it after the game or move. If you get alerts during the game or before you make your move, it's unrealistic, as that won't happen during a normal game. I frequently check my blitz games in Fritz afterward and am always surprised (and depressed) at the number of shots i miss. To me, it's more interesting to check for tactics after a human game. I'm learning and enjoying myself at the same time. I don't get much satisfaction beating Fritz in a dumbed-down versions, as i know it can beat me normally 100% of the time. In Fritz you can have that little red light pop on when there's a tactic. I prefer to leave it off and show me at the end of game, if i'm going to use it at all. We'd all like to carry a red light around to tournaments and when there's a possibility of a tactic it would start blinking. I don't think our opponents would appreciate that, though.
Originally posted by buddy2 Gorgar, the sparring mode is fine, as long as you use it after the game or move. If you get alerts during the game or before you make your move, it's unrealistic, as that won't happen during a normal game. I frequently check my blitz games in Fritz afterward and am always surprised (and depressed) at the number of shots i miss. To me, it's more interesting ...[text shortened]... c it would start blinking. I don't think our opponents would appreciate that, though.
LOL! Your opponents sure wouldn't like that 😛
But that's the difference between training/practice and an actual game.The sparring mode is like a coach.When a tennis player (or boxer,soccer player etc...) trains with his coach the coach can point out what he can do better.When later he plays an actual game he's on his own but he still benefits from his coach's comments.
That's true, Grogar. Practice games are an important part of improvement in any field. During these games the coach or manager will stop the game and explain what he wants from the player. The problem arises when a player can't, say, trap the ball properly. Then the coach can't do much more than show the player how it's done and send him to do some drill work. At the higher levels that's usually too late. Most high level players have drilled themselves senseless by the time they get on the field. By that time all those skills have become automatic. We had a kid in our neighborhood who became a professional soccer player. When he was really young he asked his father to build a brick wall so he could practice trapping, shooting, etc. In a year he had knocked the wall down, and his father had to keep repairing it. This would be the equivalent of chess tactics exercises, a concentrated way of making a skill automatic. I guess it's a mixture of the two. You can't really get good unless you play real games and you can't really play real games well unless you go through the drills. This applies to normal people. I have read where Capablanca, Morphy, etc. didn't have to go through the sweat work we human do. But i have a sneaking suspicion this isn't true. I think there's an enormous amount of background effort that goes on before anybody gets good. It's just that some people like to perpetuate the myth of the born genius, but that doesn't cut the mustard today. Kasparov, for example, put great effort into studying the game, opening repertoire, opponents weakness, etc. You can't get by on native talent.
02 Sep '06 01:34
CTARTS BIG flaw
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