you must understand positional generalities & then subordinate them to concrete calculation of critical candidate moves.
pretend you are an engine working out the best lines of play, then choose the winner of your internal weights & measures battle for each particular position, iteratively.
I have been arguing this forever.
I know he is GM but he cannot be more wrong here. The reasons some GMs say nonsense like this is because for them tactics don't really exist since they tend to see a lot of moves ahead or see tactical shots so they think that "strategy" is what wins u games... it cannot be further from the truth.
Up until master level(rating 2200) tactics and the ability to visualize and looking ahead is the essense of chess. Plans, strategies, novelties don't matter, what matters is which player is able to see more moves ahead accurately.
So yes, he is 100% wrong. He is living in a delusion that just because tactics are prevented in his games, it means beginners or intermediate players also play like that. Tactics and visualization+calculation is the soul of chess and unless you are facing a GM yourself, it doesn't matter how strong your positional compass is.
I agree that tactics from puzzles only become especially valuable as you see the potential for them arising, which means you are doing enough of them for the pieces of the puzzle to start falling into place. At that point you start to become capable of strategic planning, and you can force your tactical shots to play out.
It is an interesting read. I still side with the other opinions:
"Chess is 99% tactics" - Teichmann
"Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" - Fischer: all tactics puzzles
"Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games" - Polgar: many tactics puzzles
Tactics puzzles are good, but there are 3 pittfalls with puzzles:
1) Some people solve puzzles at half an hour / puzzle and then they play at 1 second / move
2) In a real game nobody tells you that there is a tactic, you have to grow an awareness
3) Puzzles are from the side that exploits the tactic, you also must train to avoid enemi tactics
It is an interesting read. I still side with the other opinions:
"Chess is 99% tactics" - Teichmann
"Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" - Fischer: all tactics puzzles
"Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games" - Polgar: many tactics puzzles
Tactics puzzles are good, but there are 3 pittfalls with puzzles:
1) Some people solve puzzles at half an hour / puzzle and then they play at 1 second / move
2) In a real game nobody tells you that there is a tactic, you have to grow an awareness
3) Puzzles are from the side that exploits the tactic, you also must train to avoid enemi tactics
Chill out. There are no enemies in chess. It is not worth to kill your chess opponents.
Even if you did 80% of your chess training on tactics/puzzles and say 5% on openings, 5% on endings, 5% on positional play, and 5% analysing your own games, you'd still keep making progress. The ratios/proportions make little difference as long as you're enjoying it and doing at least a bit of everything.
#30
I would rather distribute
10% tactics puzzles, as warm-up
0% openings, useless
10% endings, fundamental
0% positional play, follows from endgames
80% analysing own games, key to improving, AlphaZero did it by this alone
It depends on the level that you play at, the lower the player's standard, the more beneficial "doing puzzles" is. I've spent a lot of time trying to solve puzzles, I'm a better player as a result.
Well..
Old discussion starts again.
Doscussion about "tactics versus strategy".
“Solve puzzles and become a good puzzle solver.”
I’ve been saying this for years. It is absolutely a myth all the hype puzzles are made out to represent.
The history leading up to the appearance of “Puzzle Rush” is an interesting one. One that I know very well. Prior to it’s appearance here at CC (it was invented a few years earlier by another player who had developed his own app.) solving puzzle’s was viewed and reported to be detrimental to one’s learning chess by most posters in the forums.
Then along came an enterprising and clever marketing strategy here at CC - and Puzzle Rush was born. Hyped to the gills as an improvement tool - a tool for all levels of skill with emphasis on the new player.
Solving puzzles has it’s place of course. But it is not the tool lazy coaches make it out to be. They assign copied puzzles, say solve them and their job is finished. Such activity is in reality detrimental for the new player, spending far too much time on chess positions that will never occur in their games. Such best moves happen but a few times during the course of the chess game. And when they do occur the player must understand and have developed skills that led up to the position. New players would be better served spending valuable time on other motifs.
Well..
Old discussion starts again.
Doscussion about "tactics versus strategy".
It is about far more than two of the many motifs seen in a chess game. Far from being so simple as studying/ practicing one or the other.
What do you think? Do you believe that chess puzzles are the end-all, be-all for chess improvement? Or do you agree more with GM Grigoryan's perspective?
Sure, I agree, but one thing I think he's leaving out is that solving tactics puzzles is very useful for reasons other than tactics (visualization and a habit for calculating forcing moves).
A truly new player has difficulty seeing only a few moves ahead, and even remembering how each piece moves. Sure you can train this during games, but during a game your goal for any given position is not clear. Tactics puzzles can be seen as a concrete, goal oriented, calculation exercise.
Another useful aspect of tactics puzzles is they train good habits. You look for forcing moves, and when one move or series of moves doesn't work, you keep looking. All the time new players are offered free material by their opponents that they don't take.
For these two reasons I think players are correct to recommend puzzles to new players... and it may be that someone who is as good as a grandmaster started so young, and improved so quickly, they they're unaware of these things.
“Solve puzzles and become a good puzzle solver.”
I’ve been saying this for years. It is absolutely a myth all the hype puzzles are made out to represent.
The history leading up to the appearance of “Puzzle Rush” is an interesting one. One that I know very well. Prior to it’s appearance here at CC (it was invented a few years earlier by another player who had developed his own app.) solving puzzle’s was viewed and reported to be detrimental to one’s learning chess by most posters in the forums.
Then along came an enterprising and clever marketing strategy here at CC - and Puzzle Rush was born. Hyped to the gills as an improvement tool - a tool for all levels of skill with emphasis on the new player.
Solving puzzles has it’s place of course. But it is not the tool lazy coaches make it out to be. They assign copied puzzles, say solve them and their job is finished. Such activity is in reality detrimental for the new player, spending far too much time on chess positions that will never occur in their games. Such best moves happen but a few times during the course of the chess game. And when they do occur the player must understand and have developed skills that led up to the position. New players would be better served spending valuable time on other motifs.
strategy is as useless for a new or intermediate player as sleeping... so wasting any time on strategy until one is master strength is futile tbh. Look ahead and visualization+calculation is the only thing which matters till that point and chess puzzles help with that
“Solve puzzles and become a good puzzle solver.”
I’ve been saying this for years. It is absolutely a myth all the hype puzzles are made out to represent.
The history leading up to the appearance of “Puzzle Rush” is an interesting one. One that I know very well. Prior to it’s appearance here at CC (it was invented a few years earlier by another player who had developed his own app.) solving puzzle’s was viewed and reported to be detrimental to one’s learning chess by most posters in the forums.
Then along came an enterprising and clever marketing strategy here at CC - and Puzzle Rush was born. Hyped to the gills as an improvement tool - a tool for all levels of skill with emphasis on the new player.
Solving puzzles has it’s place of course. But it is not the tool lazy coaches make it out to be. They assign copied puzzles, say solve them and their job is finished. Such activity is in reality detrimental for the new player, spending far too much time on chess positions that will never occur in their games. Such best moves happen but a few times during the course of the chess game. And when they do occur the player must understand and have developed skills that led up to the position. New players would be better served spending valuable time on other motifs.
strategy is as useless for a new or intermediate player as sleeping... so wasting any time on strategy until one is master strength is futile tbh. Look ahead and visualization+calculation is the only thing which matters till that point and chess puzzles help with that
If only tactical level is important on sub master level, every let's say 1 700 FIDE rated level player would be on the same tactical level as any other 1 700 rated player, which is far from the truth.
There are people rated 1 000 - 1 200 here with let's say 2 200 puzzle score, and my highest puzzle score is below 2 400. So if we go by that, either I should be below let's say 1 400 rapid, or someone like that should be around 1 500 at least.
Every player has different things that define their rating. In any case, tactics is very important, but it is not everything that makes your rating on sub master level.
Very true, puzzles help a lot, but chess is not just puzzle related, it involves a wide range of concepts.
As @darkunorthodox88 has mentioned: ChessTempo is far superior to everywhere else when it comes to training of all kinds...not just tactical.
ICC's learning courses + ChessTempo + Long games online = true chess steroids.
I always preferred those puzzles, subjectively they seem better, but I can't explain why.
I agree. A balanced “palate” is good for chess improvement. Except maybe openings until 1800 OTB.