Solving chess puzzles using a real board or not?

Hi,

I'm a beginner who started to play chess a few weeks ago. In order to play better I've bought the Susan Polgar's two books.

My issue with the books is that I don't know how should I solve the puzzles: using a real board or not?

My idea was to solve the puzzles using a real board, but after started to read the first book I've saw this author's opinion:

"Try to solve these puzzles without using a board. In the beginning you may want to set up these positions on a chessboard, but as soon as you get the hang of it, solve them by looking at the book, not the board. This process will help you improve your calculation and visualization skills." 

My main concern is that since I play mostly on chess.com I will have trouble seeing the good and bad moves on real board. Also, the diagrams from the books are smaller and simpler and I think is easier to spot the solution looking at them rather than using a board.

What should I do? Should I solve the puzzles one day using only the book and the next day to try to solve them again using the board? 

Thanks for your reply, Estragon.

So, if I will use the board only to look at it and moving pieces around only in my head, will I improve/learn the same way as if I were to use only the book diagrams?

http://tacticstime.com/chess-tactics/doing-chess-tactics-with-a-real-board/

 I asked this same question and i got a whole article written on that subject. enjoy

I just put the position onto board, because it's easier to find moves...

Why not compromise & use the Game Editor on this site ?  Try here:-

http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor.html

Then you can set up any position on the virtual board which looks the same as the one you play games on here.  You can either stare at the puzzle until the solution occurs to you (good luck with that !) or move any of the pieces around to experiment with different solutions.

It also allows you to save the PGN (the starting position with all moves & variations with any comments you've added) as a simple text file which you can reload at a later time to continue with your analysis.

Edit: I forgot to add that the editor also checks for legal moves etc. & will tell you whether your solution is really mate or not in an instant.

I've decided to solve the puzzles using only the diagrams from the books.

I will write down which ones were harder (or impossible for me) to solve and after I've finished with a section or even the entire book I will come back and do them using a real board. This way I hope it will improve my vision on a real board also since I do not play real chess games very often.