I picked up Emms' "Ultimate Puzzle Book" awhile ago and found it too difficult. Then I got Polgar's 5334 Problems book, which I am finding too easy! I solve each problem in a matter of seconds. Is solving these simple problems helping my tactical eye, or merely wasting my time? Thanks.
It's easy to do the Polgar book because they give you the category at the top of the page: ie f7 sac. If you ignore the hint and just flip through at random, it's better, but it's hard to ignore the category. The tactics at emrald (chess tactics server) are by formula fitted to your level. That is, as your rating goes up, the difficulty of the tactics goes up too. As your rating goes down the problems get easier. Each of the problems is rated (just like the players), so if lots of people can solve it quickly, it's given a lower rating. So you can't say all the problems at chess tactics server are either easy or difficult or in-between. There aren't one thousand problems at 1300 level. Some are 1326 or 1322, etc. So, no matter what your level, you'll always get challenging ones, easier ones, and ones in-between.
Solving those simple tactical puzzles that quick still helps. I'm pretty sure they get harder further into the book.
Once the pattern are embedded in your brain you will find that you do the puzzles faster.
I spent 27 hours doing 810 puzzles. Then several months later when i did the same once again I did them in 24 hours. Finally at round 6 I did all 810 in 8 hours over 2 days I think it was. And no you can't memorize the solution when you are doing that many puzzles over weeks.
Check my blog for more details if you are interested.
I just finished doing 10 of the Reinfield 1001 combination puzzles. Man those are hard! I know my chess isn't up to par as it was before but still these are so hard to solve. I can only get partial solutions half the time. I have the right idea but can't see it all the way through. I do 5 of them each day just to keep sharp and as my way of getting to 2000 rating.
The tactical training mentioned in this thread is useful. However, I sometimes think that development of a “tactical eye” is oversimplified in terms of what’s involved. In particular I see it as having two main parts: (a) improving pattern recognition, and (b) tackling issues which often obscure one’s vision. I believe (a) gets plenty of emphasis (and rightly so) but (b) doesn’t. i.e. players often train to improve (a) a lot more than they do (b).
Consider this game that I lost: Game 2118192. At one point, White missed some winning tactics which I regard as fairly complex. But at the end, White lost to due to some tactics which I regard as fairly simple. So there are at least two areas for improvement, and both involve tactics, but I don’t think both can be trained for improvement in the same way.
The earlier more complex case requires me to improve my “tactical eye” or “pattern recognition”. At the time I was looking but could not see and recognise a winning line. So (a) above would help me, assuming I use a corresponding difficulty of problems.
However, the end position is entirely different. As soon as Black played his last move, I knew I was lost. The instant recognition existed within my mind. So why didn’t I see it coming... This is a case of (b). I had enough recognition, but it was badly obscured. In this case it was because I got carried away with ideas I had during the previous moves and didn’t acknowledge how the position had since changed. This is a problem with my thought process and no amount of tactical training will fix it. To tackle (b) I’m not doing tactical puzzles. I’m doing training that focuses on exercising my concentration and training myself to look at each position afresh.
Just a thought. Sometimes we don’t see because we don’t recognise, but at other times it’s because something else is obscurring or distracting us too much.
When using chess tactics server, I emphasize accuracy more than speed, as i believe that's more important. You still have to have the time in the back of your mind because cts penalizes you if you take too long and your rating goes down, even if you get it right in the end. Speed still does count for something. Sometimes i get it wrong altogether. Then i find it helpful to categorize my mistake mentally. For example, if i don't look at a check deep enough i'll say to myself, "examine forcing moves." Or if i ignore a rook in the corner of the board, i'll say "look at the whole board, not just part." Or if i miss a lined up queen and king, i'll think, "Look for geometric patterns." It always amazes me how many simple motifs i'll miss anyway, but then when i let Fritz blundercheck my blitz games, it always finds plenty of simple combos that i missed. So, by giving yourself a mental slap in the head, every time i miss a cts puzzle, it helps me stay on track. If you just say, "Damn, I should have got that and move on to the next puzzle," without examining why you missed it, you don't have nearly the improvement you'd have if you categorize mistakes.
Originally posted by ChesswickI just saved that tactics site to my favourites. . .cheers mate.
Surely you haven't solved all 5335, have you? They get more difficult.
You could always use something like Chess Tactics Server (http://chess.emrald.net/) to escalate the difficulty level.
Have you any more sites like that ?
Hi everyone,
That chess tactics server looks might interesting. I just have one question, since I'm also going through the Polgar book:
I've heard some say that doing your tactics problems by moving pieces around (even virtual ones) is not good because ideally you should learn to do it in your mind rather than with your hands. Does anyone have any opinions regarding this stance?
Regards,
R
Originally posted by RistarYeah, visualizing is harder, and so I recommend visualizing them instead of moving them. In CC visualize a line, then check with the analyze board.
Hi everyone,
That chess tactics server looks might interesting. I just have one question, since I'm also going through the Polgar book:
I've heard some say that doing your tactics problems by moving pieces around (even virtual ones) is not good because ideally you should learn to do it in your mind rather than with your hands. Does anyone have any opinions regarding this stance?
Regards,
R