look for a move, then look for a better one. one of the ideas with puzzles is that you have to find the best moves. this is normally either checkmate or winning a piece. there may be more than one opportunity in the puzzle so you must explore a number of candidates. its helping you learn how to calculate and evaluate a couple of opportunities in a position.
Puzzles - Beginner
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in a real game there wouldn't be a signpost so puzzles are the same. the practise puzzles are grouped by themes so you can focus learning on a particular tactic. the rates puzzles are random. suggest using both as they develop different skills.
Great thanks for the reply.
Hi and welcome to chess.com
My reply may not have been that helpful, so I thought I'd try and elaborate. I joined in January and have been playing chess 6-months, so I'm also new. Tactics training has helped me improve my game. I can offer some suggestions based on my experience. My tactics rating has increased from 400 to 1200 over the 6-months from January, so my comments are based on this rating range.
1) Most of the solutions are either checkmate or winning material, normally in 1 to 3 moves. At the lowest rating end, many tactics are simple 1 and 2 move check mates.
2) If you're are new to tactics, then learn the basic motifs such as Pins, Forks, Skewers, Discovered Attacks, etc. You'll find lots of internet resources on these and chess.com Puzzle Learning and Lessons. If you are 'old school' and like a book (which I do) then try 'Chess Tactics for Students' by John A. Bain. Amazon have it. It is a good introduction and also get you learning chess notation. My preference with learning anything is to combine a variety of methods and sources.
3) Many of the tactics are based on forced moves, often checks or the threat of a large material gain. I recommend the chess.com lesson on forced moves. It's an important concept.
4) Practice little and often. For the last 6-months, I've done roughly 5 per day. Just over 1000 so far.
5) Ignore the clock. The chess.com tactics have a timer and you get a better rating for solving them quickly. I ignore this and instead concentrate and solving them correctly first time. I also use them to develop my technique. My method has evolved over the last 6-months as the tactics have got harder. Currently it is:
- I quickly itemise all the opponents checks and captures and my replies.
- I then look at, overall, what my opponent is threatening. What does it look like their plan is.
- I then quickly itemise all my checks and captures, and what I think the opponents strongest reply is to each of these.
- I then solve the tactic. However, I solve it in my head (calculation and visualisation) before moving pieces, so I don't guess the solution.
- Once I've solved it, I then name the tactics in the solution.
- If it's not a checkmate, I look at the position and think about what my next move might be, or what my plan might be, basically, if it was a real game what would I do next and why.
Tactics training will develop both your chess knowledge and skills. The skills part is sometimes over looked. It will improve your ability to calculate and visualise sequences of moves in your head.
You will go through periods of 'Chess Blindness' where you seem unable to solve tactics that were previously no problem. This is normal and part of the learning process. I recently made 1250 and then had two weeks of blindness when my rating dropped to 1150. I was making silly mistakes or being lazy and not properly calculating. It seems to have passed.
I find it also takes time for good habits and skills developed in tactics training to work into my game. There is a lag. After 6-months though I'm definitely feeling the benefits come through into my game. My calculation and visualisation is much stronger, and the habit of considering and calculating candidate moves is better. I don't stay locked into my plans/ideas after the position has changed (or at least I'm getting better at this).
Good luck and enjoy.
...and on timing, typically I take 3 to 5 minutes per tactic. I think my longest is 20 odd minutes. I never make the target time. I rarely ask for a hint.
MarkGrubb wrote:
Hi and welcome to chess.com
My reply may not have been that helpful, so I thought I'd try and elaborate. I joined in January and have been playing chess 6-months, so I'm also new. Tactics training has helped me improve my game. I can offer some suggestions based on my experience. My tactics rating has increased from 400 to 1200 over the 6-months from January, so my comments are based on this rating range.
1) Most of the solutions are either checkmate or winning material, normally in 1 to 3 moves. At the lowest rating end, many tactics are simple 1 and 2 move check mates.
2) If you're are new to tactics, then learn the basic motifs such as Pins, Forks, Skewers, Discovered Attacks, etc. You'll find lots of internet resources on these and chess.com Puzzle Learning and Lessons. If you are 'old school' and like a book (which I do) then try 'Chess Tactics for Students' by John A. Bain. Amazon have it. It is a good introduction and also get you learning chess notation. My preference with learning anything is to combine a variety of methods and sources.
3) Many of the tactics are based on forced moves, often checks or the threat of a large material gain. I recommend the chess.com lesson on forced moves. It's an important concept.
4) Practice little and often. For the last 6-months, I've done roughly 5 per day. Just over 1000 so far.
5) Ignore the clock. The chess.com tactics have a timer and you get a better rating for solving them quickly. I ignore this and instead concentrate and solving them correctly first time. I also use them to develop my technique. My method has evolved over the last 6-months as the tactics have got harder. Currently it is:
- I quickly itemise all the opponents checks and captures and my replies.
- I then look at, overall, what my opponent is threatening. What does it look like their plan is.
- I then quickly itemise all my checks and captures, and what I think the opponents strongest reply is to each of these.
- I then solve the tactic. However, I solve it in my head (calculation and visualisation) before moving pieces, so I don't guess the solution.
- Once I've solved it, I then name the tactics in the solution.
- If it's not a checkmate, I look at the position and think about what my next move might be, or what my plan might be, basically, if it was a real game what would I do next and why.
Tactics training will develop both your chess knowledge and skills. The skills part is sometimes over looked. It will improve your ability to calculate and visualise sequences of moves in your head.
You will go through periods of 'Chess Blindness' where you seem unable to solve tactics that were previously no problem. This is normal and part of the learning process. I recently made 1250 and then had two weeks of blindness when my rating dropped to 1150. I was making silly mistakes or being lazy and not properly calculating. It seems to have passed.
I find it also takes time for good habits and skills developed in tactics training to work into my game. There is a lag. After 6-months though I'm definitely feeling the benefits come through into my game. My calculation and visualisation is much stronger, and the habit of considering and calculating candidate moves is better. I don't stay locked into my plans/ideas after the position has changed (or at least I'm getting better at this).
Good luck and enjoy."
Seriously thank you so much for the in-depth reply. I'll take any help I can get, the specific guidelines and knowledge you've described here really help me.
Cheers Mark!
A good example I just come across in this puzzle, Ke8, Rf1, the rook was being attacked by Ne3 so I had to move my rook. The play was to move Rf1 to Rf8. I didn't think this was a play because even if the King was in check the King could trade the rook. After the moving the Rf1 to Rf8, Ke8 to Kd7. Why didn't the king trade here?
if you have difficulty understanding the solution then use puzzle learning on chess.com and lower the rating range. you need to be able to walk before you can run. your chess knowledge and skills needs to be roughly matched to the puzzle rating or you will struggle to find candidate moves and calculate the solution. if you aren't seeing it after the first hint then the rating is too high.
MarkGrubb wrote:
if you have difficulty understanding the solution then use puzzle learning on chess.com and lower the rating range. you need to be able to walk before you can run. your chess knowledge and skills needs to be roughly matched to the puzzle rating or you will struggle to find candidate moves and calculate the solution. if you aren't seeing it after the first hint then the rating is too high.
I mean sure but as my example states, why was the play to check the king and for the king to move away, than the king just trading the rook and being safe. If I did that play in an online match I'm pretty sure my opponent would just take the rook 9 times out of 10. It just didn't seem like a reasonable move to me. But obviously I must be missing something here?
Also I think its quoting my reply, anyone know how I can just quote the person and not my reply?
I would need to see the puzzle. can you post it in a message? sorry I dont know how to do this but there is probably something in the site help about it.
I have no idea how to send you a puzzle, especially that specific one.
try the general chess discussion forum. one of the threads at the top is on how to post a game. it may also apply to puzzles. if not then google how to post a chess.com puzzle and you'll find someone has asked the same question on this forum a few times and had it answered. the puzzle itself might be in your puzzle history.
for puzzle history try more, stats, problems from the pull down menu in top left, then scroll down to recent problems. at least that's where it is in my phone.
Ah right I'll have a look in abit - thanks again.
Jun 15, 2020
0
#19
"ey yo guys, check this out, good stuff for beginners this gejimayus blog": https://www.chess.com/blog/gejimayu/master-a-single-pattern-with-lots-of-variations
Hi guys, I'm really excited to learn Chess!
The thing that's griping me the most is these puzzles. I'm not sure what the primary mission is. I'll see a move that seems completely logical but it's not the intended pathway in that puzzle. How do I know what the primary objective is, whether it's checking a king or taking an important move?
Thanks and have a good day!