chess tactics training

Im trying to improve my blitz play and figured tactics training must be part of the solution. Ive been training on chessTempo blitz and have completely stagnated. I can't get passed 1500 in blitz section, but 1800 in standard. I find solving the problems in 20sec difficult. I'm basically just too slow until I get frustrated and go on tilt. 1500 in blitz, is about the bottom 25% of current active players which probably represents me well if I compare myself to chess playing community for blitz.

 

So, how to get over this hump? I'm also in my mid 40s so maybe I've hit my limit, but I don't what to go there yet. Is there a better technique then playing chessTempo blitz over and over. A better program? I read a post suggesting that you need to do the same problems over and over until you get faster and chessTempo doesn't easily allow for that.  Just looking for ideas. willing to buy a new program, if it's fundamentally different from chessTempo.  Maybe something that uses spaced repetition automatically.

You haven't even tried Puzzle Rush?

I think it may be just what you need.

I haven't.  I gave it a try and liked it.  It certainly highlights my weakness.  I couldn't get past 19 on my best try. I'm just too slow and I'll make errors if I push myself faster.  My tablet seems to slow things up

 

 

 

But then I was blocked.  The monthly fees bother me a lot.  To play puzzle rush freely you have to spend 50 bucks a year.  Seems like a lot. What other options are there?  Do they ever have sales?

 

Haven't seen a sale but they do offer month by month memberships and 30 day money back guarantees.

I can write a book with suggestions (especially since I struggle with time as well), but the main thing you have to understand is that it takes time. It is a must to realize that and most ppl they either never realize it or they realize it after a very long time (months or years), during which they were hard on themselves.

It needs patience and it comes with leaps. Also, it takes much time to improve in chess and 10 times more to play faster, especially since speed is somewhat embedded to your specs and can't be changed easily.

I went from 970 to 1800+ here in tactics and from 700 to about 1200 in blitz. It's not bad at all, but I am not impressed either (especially compared to the effort), but becoming better, even slightly, makes me happy.

If you understand that it takes time and still want to improve, msg me to give you some suggestions that worked with me.

thanks for all the comments.

Still considering a Convecta software product.  Lots of older posts on those but not sure what is currently most popular. 

David

 

If you find $50 per year steep, you’re not gonna like my answer. I’ll give it anyway because others read these forums.

Pay for your membership here or at Chess Tempo and you can solve the problems that you missed.

Also there are some good videos of tactics here by Danny Rensch. One piece of advice from these videos: solve five per day with no timer. If you get one wrong, solve it five more times.

I solve timed and untimed, here, CT, Chess Informant (CI costs me $180 per year), Nunn’s Puzzle Book, ... and today got over 2150 in tactics for the first time since the gross rating inflation days of the site’s first year of existence. One puzzle took me more than six hours because I fell asleep trying to solve it on my iPad last night and then solved it first thing this morning.

 

It must have felt great to have solved it though, right!

It wasn't hard after 417 minutes.

I appreciate your comments.  It's not that the 50$ is steep, it's the value.  I mean, I could buy two different software packages and own them forever and have money left over instead of renting the software here.

But maybe the software here is that much better and well worth it.  That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Sounds like you put in a lot of work into your game.  What age did you start and how long did it take you to achieve what you have?

 

 

I've been playing 51 years and have been worsening in the past seven years. I work very hard to slow the decline in my abilities.

 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!

Don't try to solve puzzles in 20 seconds. Solve slowly and carefully and review your missed puzzles.

I also suggest putting your failed puzzles on a list, and waiting 3-7 days, and then try to solve them again. If you fail again, then review the solution again, and keep it in your fail list and try again in 3-7 days, etc.

Speed chess is only for the patterns you know best, and it's certainly not for accuracy. If you play a speed game like solving a puzzle you'll probably be playing too slowly. In speed chess you have to be willing to make huge mistakes. In puzzle solving you should try to be as accurate as possible. 

tactics training certainly won't hurt - and will be useful, but it's only a small piece of the puzzle - blitz is a lot to do with 'feel' - it's actually quite hard to train this over the short-term, but in general, improving your classical chess improves your blitz chess as well - it needs lots of long time control games and experience and so on.

 

I usually do review of 5-10% of blitz games I played.

 

Tactics training is too general. Reviewing tactics in your real game is specific to certain tactic patterns that you are going to face in your real game.

 

That specific pattern training helps you improve your rating faster.