Hi everyone,
I am a fairly advanced beginner and would like to improve on my tactical eye. As we all know, tactics should be your everything until you reach a high level or so. Thus, I would like to get a handheld for quality mobile tactics training. Some questions are:
1) What handheld should I purchase? I can get fairly old (3 years) 2nd hand Hp Ipaqs for quite a cheap price. Or perhaps should I go with a Palm?
2) What programs are there for tactical training? I only heard good things about the Pocket CT-ART. Are there any others available?
3) Is the Windows Pocket PC or Palm OS better in terms of variety of different softwares? Perhaps the Palm have better Chess playing software?
Thats all I can think on top of my head. The reason I want a handheld for training is that I find it hard to train on the PC because I get distracted easily as in there is your chat programs and other high powered graphical games. I can't stick with pure chess training on the PC for more than 15 minutes!
you can get a chess program like pocket grandmaster or chess genius for the pocket pc and then a pgn of reinfelds 1001 checkmates and also 1001 sacrifices which are in the public domain and easily found on the web.
i also have pocket ct-art which is great. the same tactics as the pc version.
pocket fritz for the ppc also comes with a database of tactics to play over, though i don't know how many it contains.
Well I would recomend playing some games on here. If you can't keep your attention for more then 15 mins that fine just spend them making a move, have a couple of games going with timebanks that will not put you under pressure. You are not going to improve without playing games and you sound very keen maybe you will enjoy chess on here and even if you use chat programs (I do) you will find that you don't get so distracted you can't do both.
Just my view its not really answering your question but it may help. Good luck with your improvement and more importantly enjoy it.
Originally posted by stanlohFor tactics, I'd suggest a tactics book and a small, cheap magnetic board.
Hi everyone,
I am a fairly advanced beginner and would like to improve on my tactical eye. As we all know, tactics should be your everything until you reach a high level or so. Thus, I would like to get a handheld for quality mobile tactics training. Some questions are:
1) What handheld should I purchase? I can get fairly old (3 years) 2nd hand Hp Ipaq ...[text shortened]... red graphical games. I can't stick with pure chess training on the PC for more than 15 minutes!
Originally posted by stanlohGet the Mephisto hand held. It's wicked. With the light pen. I love it!
Hi everyone,
I am a fairly advanced beginner and would like to improve on my tactical eye. As we all know, tactics should be your everything until you reach a high level or so. Thus, I would like to get a handheld for quality mobile tactics training. Some questions are:
1) What handheld should I purchase? I can get fairly old (3 years) 2nd hand Hp Ipaq ...[text shortened]... red graphical games. I can't stick with pure chess training on the PC for more than 15 minutes!
Originally posted by welsharnieFor tactics and to better your entire games all the way around and add at least 100 points or more to your strength depending on where you're at - and reaching an A-class player strength - I suggest The Comprehensive Chess Course Volumes I, II and III (Tactics for the Tournament player) for your study method. It will take some time, but with a solid commitment of an hour or more study a day, you can finish all of those three books and easily obtain an 1800 rating with lots of play and study. Oh, by the way, those books are authored by GM Palatnik and 3-time U.S. Chess Champion Lev Alburt. Alburt will also personally autograph the books you order straight from him. He autographed one of mine. 🙂 And, wished me luck! I finished the entire two volumes and started on the third one (though I've been slacking on the tactics book because I'm burnt out for now), and I can defeat my 1700 handheld chess computer in a ten game match with ease with 1 hour and 20 minute time controls.
For tactics, I'd suggest a tactics book and a small, cheap magnetic board.
personally...nothing beats some old time blitz...play a couple 25 or so 5-10min games....try not to stall for time but actually win....I recomend yahoo. (Personally i dont find this as blitz, but for someone coming off of a daily corespondance, it will definantly seem like it.) After a while tactics should come naturally, or you will need to lower your time ammount so that you dont have enough time for strategies...trust me it works..sometimes a little to well and when you play slow again you will play tactics over strategy, so make sure you find a good balance.
But if your gona get a handheld....i guess anything will do...just limit yourself to very little time
Originally posted by c guy1I don't like this approach... the main point with tactics is that you have to get them EXACT. You can miss one reply, and then you find it doesn't work (some people say that the hardest part of tactics is being able to accept when you cannot play a tactic). You need to be able to analyse tactics accurately and completely.
personally...nothing beats some old time blitz...play a couple 25 or so 5-10min games....try not to stall for time but actually win....I recomend yahoo. (Personally i dont find this as blitz, but for someone coming off of a daily corespondance, it will definantly seem like it.) After a while tactics should come naturally, or you will need to lower your time ...[text shortened]... f your gona get a handheld....i guess anything will do...just limit yourself to very little time
In my viw blitz does not help this, as you can play tactics which can be refuted, but still work due to your opponent missing the refutation because of time trouble.
Originally posted by c guy1Sorry but your argument doesn't carry much weight to it. I think you really would be better thinking about moves more slowly and with longer term advantage then rushing through, I think playing to fast will reduce your patence when playing a game with a lot of thinking time and you will not learn to think through in such depth.
true...but it teaches how to look for basice tactics, once you learn them you can slow down and apply deeper tactics. You cant learn to play deep if you dont first learn to play shallow.
A book might be able to do the job that the handheld is wanted for not sure on the book. It depends on if you want the handheld for other things, if chess is all then I would think it might be better to get a book go through it do all the puzzels/situations then get another and repeat.