How to improve at puzzles (explaning puzzle ranges)

@thefrickouttaherelol said in #8:
Alright, so I decided to show you. How I solve 2300 rated puzzles with my personal analytics just to show how hard these are. It is my study, where I selected 3 puzzles with I could correctly solve.

@xDoubledragon said in #11:

Alright, so I decided to show you. How I solve 2300 rated puzzles with my personal analytics just to show how hard these are. It is my study, where I selected 3 puzzles with I could correctly solve.
Can you send me links to some 2300 puzzles? I'll see if I can solve them.

@thefrickouttaherelol said in #12:

Can you send me links to some 2300 puzzles? I'll see if I can solve them.
Can you look at my analytics please?
It took a lot of effort

@xDoubledragon said in #13:

Can you look at my analytics please?
It took a lot of effort
Did you do that for me? I don't go through analytics. Ever. If you really want me to do it as a favor for you, I can, but it will take me time.

@thefrickouttaherelol said in #14:

Did you do that for me? I don't go through analytics. Ever. If you really want me to do it as a favor for you, I can, but it will take me time.
Well it had a fun doing that accually as a from of procrastination, but kinda yes

@xDoubledragon said in #15:

Well it had a fun doing that accually as a from of procrastination, but kinda yes
I just did this one: https://lichess.org/training/wv4lG

It's a 2579-rated puzzle.

Granted, it took me 10 minutes and I normally try to "play" puzzles like I would a Blitz game (sometimes Bullet if it's very easy). But I was able to get it done before my work meeting here this morning and without any deep analysis.

I did fail multiple 2500+ puzzles prior to that because I was trying to do them too quickly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though I don't have a TON of evidence to back this up (I don't have the patience for these kinds of puzzles), I believe I'm capable of doing 2300+ puzzles (since I just solved an almost 2600-rated puzzle).

I will look at your analysis when I have the mental and emotional energy for that kind of activity.

I am at 2700 puzzles. Solving puzzles gets easier if you do a methodical checking of forcing moves.
First I scan the position and evaluate it roughly to get an idea of the tactical motifs, material imbalance etc.
Then I look for candidate moves - since it's a puzzle I really only care about forcing moves (checks, captures, threats), but in a real game you should also consider positional moves.
Then it's a matter of calculation. The most important thing is to calculate all the way to the end of a line.

A lot of puzzles, especially higher rated, will force you to also consider more subtle ideas - for example, this one is 2600+ https://lichess.org/training/9C4tP, because it requires you to position your queen at the end to win a bunch of pawns in the future, otherwise the position isn't winning even though you won their queen.
So you still want to evaluate the position like you would in a real game, because it's not always straightforward.

@crtex said in #17:

...

Yeah I'm noticing with 2500-level puzzles that they're still very tactical. I would imagine 2800+ puzzles can be more positional? I realize strategy = really far out tactics at a certain point. (Of course, you have to be a supercomputer to see things that way.)

I'm playing 2500 puzzles for fun. I'm disappointed in them. While some of them are harder, some are such obvious sharp positions that I'm wondering how people are missing them.

I can fail 5 2500+ puzzles in a row, and it not impact my puzzle rating, but solving a single one increases it by 23 points... It feels like cheating, especially since I know I'm not very "good" at puzzles.

@crtex @xDoubledragon Here's an example of a 2500-rated puzzle that was such a sharp line, I didn't even have to do any analysis: https://lichess.org/training/8gheA

I solved it in 10 seconds by intuition, and my rating increased 23 points as a result... Ridiculous.

@thefrickouttaherelol said in #19:

@crtex @xDoubledragon Here's an example of a 2500-rated puzzle that was such a sharp line, I didn't even have to do any analysis: lichess.org/training/8gheA

I solved it in 10 seconds by intuition, and my rating increased 23 points as a result... Ridiculous.
I assumed you just guessed the move, there are so many good looking alternative moves