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5 Ways to Improve Chess Tactics

 iChess.net contributor

 September 28, 2017  Leave a comment (https://www.ichess.net/2017/09/28/5-ways-improve-chess-tactics/#respond)

General Chess Articles (https://www.ichess.net/category/genera-chess-

articles/)

5 Ways To Improve Chess Tactics

One of the most important skills of any successful chess player is to perform well in tactical
calculations and to improve Chess Tactics.

Nowadays, however, many chess players exclusively focus on openings, remember long,
forcing lines and rely on computer evaluations. As soon as a complex position arises on the
chess board, these players have to stick to their own resources. They lack tactical skills,
calculate poorly and slowly and nally lose their games.

Shortly afterwards, they scan through their games at light speed without actually
comprehending what they are looking at and notice that they were +2.27 in a given position,
meaning that it could have only been bad luck that they couldn’t convert their winning
position. If they do this over and over again, the end result can be summarised in one word –
stagnation!

It’s important to understand that improvement in Chess Tactics is achieved through hard,
meaningful work. The vast majority of amateur games is decided through tactics. You can
play a strong positional game, but most of the time to nish o the game it requires a tactical
blow which will convert your advantage into something more concrete. Tactical skills and the ability to nd the right combinations help to convert
advantages into more concrete gains.

In essence, we can put our thoughts into a simple formula: Improving your tactical skills will help you to improve your overall chess results!

Subsequently, we have to nd an answer to the following question: Which possibilities do we have to improve Chess Tactics?

There’s plenty of debate on the best way to get better on this area. The following article is devoted to 5 of the best ways to improve Chess Tactics.
Here’s the list (in no particular order).

Solve Chess Tactics every day

There’s a remarkable quote by Grandmaster Adrian Mikhalchishin: “Just as a pianist practices nger-exercises every day, so every day, a chess-
player should train his tactical vision.”

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11/8/2017 5 Ways to Improve Chess Tactics | Chess Blog of iChess.NET

To illustrate this point, we can compare chess with other forms of sport. While a basketball player has to spend plenty of his training time running
and improving his ball skills, a chess player also has to work on his most important tool which enables him to achieve great results – his brain. A
soccer player who has not been working on his condition for weeks is simply unable to perform well in a match of over 90 minutes playtime.

If you’re regularly playing tournaments and want to improve your results, your brain needs to stay in sharp shape. Therefore, it’s highly
recommendable that chess players of any level train tactics on a daily basis. You’ll not only discover many new tactical ideas which will have a
great practical use for your future games but also see tactics better and faster. One training method which can be very motivating, for example, is
to meet with chess friends at your level and compete in tactic tests against each other. Doing this, you’ll also have a lot of fun solving puzzles
together.

Don’t abuse chess engines

Peter Leko once said that “in our modern computer era, it’s always a delight […] to stimulate our
brains.” This means that you’ll learn more and increase your understanding of Chess Tactics by
doing the work yourself. The use of chess engines is a complicated topic.

However, it becomes more and more obvious that many amateur chess players don’t think by
themselves about a given chess position rst, but immediately start to look at the machine’s
evaluation. These habits turn out to be fatal as they keep you away from training your tactical
skills.

It’s essential to understand that you can’t rely on the help of any chess engine in your own games. Instead, an e ective way to improve Chess
Tactics is to rst analyze a position yourself and only then use a chess engine to compare your thoughts with the engine’s lines.

Use Chess Tactics Trainer Websites and Apps

Thanks to the latest technological progress, tactical training tools are easy and e cient to use.
Hence, they should become part of a daily routine for players of all skill levels. As many chess
training websites o er Tactics Trainer apps to use all the services on your phone, you’re not tied
to a computer anymore.

You can solve tactics puzzles everywhere – when travelling in the bus, sitting in the tube on your
way to work or lying at the beach on vacation. To discover the numerous advantages tactics
training Websites or apps o er and which ones are most helpful, you can take a closer look at
this highly informative article (https://www.ichess.net/2017/09/21/3-best-chess-tactics-trainer-
websites/).

Improve pattern recognition and calculation abilities

While doing tactics training, one needs to distinguish between pattern recognition and chess calculation skills. On the one hand, the concept of
pattern recognition is of great importance. There are familiar tactical themes like pins, forks and double attacks which recur over and over.
(https://www.ichess.net/shop/calculation-dvoretsky-im-mark-dvoretsky-gm-jan-gustafsson/)

Being able to spot these tactical motifs quickly is an essential factor to compete with strong chess
players. The more tactics you solve, the more patterns you are familiar with and the faster you’ll
recognize them in di erent positions.

On the other hand, it’s essential to focus on your calculation abilities in order to sharpen your
tactical eye (https://www.ichess.net/sale/shankland-method-2-october17/). Improving your
calculation methods (e.g. look for forced moves like checks or captures rst) helps you to
systemize your calculation (https://www.chess.com/article/view/5-grandmaster-tips-to-improve-
your-tactics). Finally, this enables you to check di erent lines more e ciently.

Use chess tactics books and DVD series

Last but not least, chess books and chess video series are useful tools to improve your Chess Tactics for several reasons. First of all, they provide
you with a huge amount of well-chosen tactical puzzles and exercises which you can use as your training material. Secondly, di erent strong chess
masters provide you with great insights into their approach to Chess Tactics. Thirdly, it’s a good idea to focus on tactical motifs which occur in the
openings you regularly play. Many books and DVD series combine openings with tactics (https://www.ichess.net/shop/tactic-toolbox-grunfeld/)
and provide you with many tactical ideas which are typical for certain openings.

All in all, we could only present 5 ways to improve Chess Tactics in our list. However, your opinions and thoughts on that topic are surely always
welcome. Feel free to leave a comment and tell us how do you try to improve in Chess Tactics.


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11/8/2017 5 Ways to Improve Chess Tactics | Chess Blog of iChess.NET

Looking for a shortcut to become a master tactician? Take a look at this exclusive o er (https://www.ichess.net/sale/tactics-calculation-ambitious-
player-launch-special-o er/).

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