Humiliation is the path one must walk

My apologies for venting, but I had to tell someone: After carefully playing through 160+ tactics training exercises in the last 2+ weeks one thing has become very clear: I Really Suck At This! My 60% correct score gives me an approximate OTB rating of 1450. Replaying the missed problems multiple times with the correct answers have helped me memorize them, and even helped me win a game at the last tournament. Some of the correct responses are 7-8 moves deep - - too deep for my little pea brain in most cases.

Please don't get me wrong, this is exactly what I (or anyone) needs in order to improve, and in observing players in the A group, expert, masters etc. I see these folks have completed several thousand of these exercises, and make it part of their daily routine. To get to 1800, Humiliation is the path I must walk.

Right now though, I feel like crawling into a homemade blanket fort and curling up in a fetal position! 😳

@mchill

One thing to be mindful of is whether you are missing problems because you are failing to spot the key idea (tactical vision) or struggling to calculate the correct move order. I think it's important to solve simple 1 or 2 move"find the fork/pin/skewer/hanging piece" that are arranged thematically as part of your training even as you get better and not just difficult lengthier problems.

Though I hate bullet/rapid cause it has mashed up my chess, it does force you to think quickly. You could be low tactically on these traps/puzzles but you could understand basic openings/strategies and beat quite a few people.

Tactical puzzles are like gym work for an Olympic 100m or 200m champion, very one dimensional.

mchill tying to say this gently and not bash you, you've got the right idea improving yourself but perhaps wrong approach? You said Replaying the missed problems multiple times with the correct answers have helped me memorize them

Don't aim at memorising the puzzles because when you play games there is no mate in 3 or trap in 5 etc perhaps aim to understand tactical situations, themes and patterns?

@kingme said
@mchill

One thing to be mindful of is whether you are missing problems because you are failing to spot the key idea (tactical vision) or struggling to calculate the correct move order. I think it's important to solve simple 1 or 2 move"find the fork/pin/skewer/hanging piece" that are arranged thematically as part of your training even as you get better and not just difficult lengthier problems.

The post that was quoted here has been removed