Puzzles from books way more fun than Online

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TheSonics

7 days ago

I used to only do very hard puzzles from books,

now I started doing medium-easy puzzles from booklets and it's amazing.

it gives you a feeling of your real calculation without moving any pieces, just write down the answers.

It's much more satisfying than the green V online... and unlike online where "by theme" puzzles are annoying, in a book it's actually helpful for pattern recognition..

Then you can use the normal platforms on chess.com to actually train your "random position" solving, and sortof test your progress... but treat Online solving as "a game", and from the book it's your "training". It makes the entire thing way more fun.

for example, I solved most positions from my book easily, until one of them I did fail;

Black to play:

For some reason I couldn't see Bxd2, and I found myself evaluating the position after Bxa1??,

It actually is better for Black, and it's a fascinating position with 3 pieces for a Queen.

Online I would have got the puzzle right, and moved on... here I got to delve in to a beautiful position, and also learned from my mistake simply because :

1. pieces don't move. view it on the board-easy... in your head -a bit less..

2.coordinates were upside down (with black to move)

3. it was "a bit fuzzy" in terms of my calculation just 2 moves deep (lol) - couldn't see clearly in my head.

so I got to learn from my mistake but I didn't get an annoying RED X that tilts me and makes me feel dumb, I got instead a nice and learning experience overall... I got rewarded (!) for my mistake a lesson in evaluating a really complicated position.

..and most importantly I learnt that I can miss really obvious moves only 2 moves deep, and it's better to train that than to ignore it...

Not to mention you will get most of your puzzles right if you get the correct level of difficulty...

So in conclusion - for all of us who play mainly online and want to improve, find a nice and moderate-easy puzzle book and just do hundreds of puzzles. It's way more fun than online.

Cheers

justbefair

6 days ago

Hmm, old puzzle books have their uses but online puzzles keep a record for you and show your progress.

Plus, the Daily Puzzle is a vibrant community.

SacrifycedStoat

6 days ago

“Green v online”
You realize you can change your theme right?

TheSonics

6 days ago

justbefair wrote:

Hmm, old puzzle books have their uses but online puzzles keep a record for you and show your progress.

Plus, the Daily Puzzle is a vibrant community.

yeah just for me I started playing in Covid... I feel like only doing puzzles online encourages you to "half solve" before playing the 1st move... in the book you look at all the variations in your head..

so for me they are not "old" but "new" puzzle books

And it made the whole thing more fun for me -- there's something that can be tilting about online puzzles because you either do really easy ones, or really hard ones because the rating can actually prevent you from accessing the ones in the proper difficulty... Rush Survival is good but sometimes it's hard to keep concentration...

anyways I think it's not instead of online solving but a good addition - especially for new players who only ever solve online most of the time

TheSonics

6 days ago

SacrifycedStoat wrote:

“Green v online”
You realize you can change your theme right?

haha, will do!

I meant in general the solving method, ofc you can solve all variations in your head before playing the 1st move online, but often you just play it move per move and the solving is a bit superficial...

and then when you get a move order wrong or get it completly wrong the red X can be tilting for me