Studying Tactics

                          Studying Tactics

It is important to try and study tactics on a daily basis if possible, even if it is only for 10 minutes
a day. One website that I like is www.habitforge.com. This was recommended by Tim Ferriss in
“The Four Hour Body” as a great site for building new habits in to your life. What you do is set
up a new habit such as “Study tactics for at least 10 minutes” and every day the website will
email you asking if you did it or not. You answer “yes” or “no” and it will track how many days
you have completed your goal.

There are many ways to study chess tactics. I personally have used books, websites, magazines,
software and videos. There is no right or wrong way. The key is focus and repetition. If I had to
choose one method, I would probably choose software. The key advantage of software is that it
is interactive, less likely to contain mistakes, and allows you to use computer analysis to
understand the position if needed.

Studying tactics should be fun. If they are not fun, try a different approach. Some tactics are
amazingly beautiful such as windmill tactics, under promotions or smothered mates.

Look for patterns in your games, and in the tactical puzzles that you solve for the types of tactics
that you miss. For example I tend to miss pawn forks. Another friend of mine is weak on mating
nets. Once you identify a weakness, work on that area to eliminate it.

Teach the basic chess tactics to a friend or child that is interested in learning the game. When
you teach something, two people learn. Being able to teach it, will ensure that you really
understand the concept yourself.

Publish tactics from your own games, and the games of others. I first started “Tactics Time” as a
column in the Colorado Chess Informant, which is the official state magazine of the Colorado
State Chess Association. I would publish 9 positions from games played in Colorado with a
“White to Move” or “Black to Move”, and would try to give funny/amusing answers to each
question. Writing a tactics column forced me to go through a lot of chess player games, and see
what kind of tactical mistakes they were making.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman109.pdf Dan Heisman wrote an interesting “Novice
Nook” article on “Tactical Sets and Goals”. He discusses his idea that there are four different
levels of understanding to a chess tactic starting with being able to figure it out, to knowing it
when presented as a problem, to being able to see it in a game (without having the added
knowledge that a tactic is in fact there), etc. I like his analogies of chess problems to math
problems such as “knowing that 8x7=56” versus having to compute it.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman106.pdf Another good Heisman article where he
stresses the importance of preventing your opponent’s tactics, and not just offensive tactics,
and how to tell if a move is safe or not.

                                                                                            Source-Internet