I often miss simple tactics (mate in two, forks, skewers etc) in blitz/bullet games so I decided yesterday that it would be a good idea to start solving puzzles at the same speed as I play (giving myself 5 sec for each one). As a result, my puzzle rating dropped from 2200 to 1800 in one day after solving 200 and getting more than half of them wrong ;) I’m just wondering if its more useful to solve lots under time pressure or fewer harder ones. Any suggestions are welcome :)
I was never serious about improving my chess, but based on experience in other areas I'd say it's never good to do many exercises wrong. If I wanted to practice finding the right move very quickly, I'd either make sure that the puzzles are very easy, or go to that blitztactics page and do them in sets repeatedly. Practicing failure doesn't seem right.
Solving hard puzzles without time pressure on the other hand is probably always good, but it trains different skills.
@Tae7
The whole idea of puzzle rush can be fun (And it seems popular among lots of people), however the question is whether it is really useful for say serious chess improvement for U2200 amateur chess players. It might just make your mind more superficial, while little details can matter in chess positions.
When I do such on blitztactics dot com I sometimes get annoyed because I cannot easily take the time to find out why I got a puzzle wrong (Yes, you can see previous puzzle, then put the custom position on a board and find out).
With the new Lichess tactics V2 the default is Healthy mix which can include difficult endgame puzzles.
What you can do is practice by themes on Lichess, e.g. only checkmate in 2, then later skewers, then later pin etc.
and give yourself some time (In 5 0 blitz you also don't have to use e.g. 5 seconds per move).
Make sure to deal with TILT mode. If you get a losing streak with puzzles it often does not make sense to try to solve them more ferocious and at higher speed.
I recommend also training with chesstempo besides Lichess tactics. The statistics are very useful (e.g. your move time, move time after move 1, puzzle rating, your rating progress and more), and you have the choice for Standard (win), Mixed (win or draw) or Blitz (time based, I recommend to not focus on this for now) or checkmates or motif or puzzles you got wrong. And my impression is that CT ratings do reflect the puzzle solving better.
GL&*HF!
@achja I am very curious: Why are you advising against the blitz mode? What downsides do you see if you choose accuracy over speed in blitz mode? Standard tactics become really hard and are mostly calculation, blitz puzzles are challenging enough, but don't take ages. Much better for improvement of pattern recognition and short and simpler calculations in my opinion.
#1
"a good idea to start solving puzzles at the same speed as I play"
Yes, of course. You should train at approximately the same conditions as you play.
@tpr What would that be helpful for? Sound good in theory, but does not make much sense in this case. One usually has more than 5 seconds in a blitz game for calculating a tactic. If he developts a better pattern recognition and sense of danger he will smell there is something in the position. Then he can start calculating moves and for that he most likely has more than just 5 seconds.
#6
It depends on what time control a player wants to become good at.
If it is 15+10 rapid, then there is about 40 seconds per move.
If it is 10+0 rapid, then there is about 20 seconds per move.
@tpr You will move faster as long as you know theory or the moves are obvious, like recaptures and stuff. You will have more time at crucial moments of the game, when you need to come up with the right plan or sense a tactic.
@teerdurchzogen
Let's assume you would only train with Blitz mode puzzles. Would you also use little time to find out why you got some of the puzzles wrong ? If so, then the learning value might only be in some "pattern recognition", or maybe dealing with TILT mode when there is a losing streak.
If you want to quickly improve and go for blitz puzzle training, it could maybe improve your blitz and bullet results, but did your game content also improve ?
I really like it when I sometimes need to take more time on a puzzle and leave it open. Then it can be very delightful to find a puzzle solution after some aha moment after say 5 or 10 minutes. And it gives me the feeling I've made an achievement, finding out an idea by spending time on it, which resembles OTB chess for me.
Having said that, I believe I've read that a titled player recommended against doing 100 cheapo puzzles at a time.
However, from time to time I like to solve cheapo puzzles as well, and not spend too much time on it (e.g. by not logging in to Lichess and start solving).
On chesstempo I've recently gone through all the checkmate motifs (till I got over 1800+ rating for each) and now going through all tactical motifs. For the checkmate ones most of them were fairly easy (also because you know there is a checkmate), so I could often go through them quickly.
@achja I've done that for some checkmate patterns too, you are right, those are surprisingly easy usually. Blitz mode I always found to be very challenging. I checked our stats and you are higher rated than I am, but your accuracy is much lower. I think if one cares less about speed in blitz mode and more about accuracy one gets a lot of good tactics. For me those are no cheapo puzzles, cheapo puzzles are those you get using chesstempo anonymously, or maybe lichess, like you said.
I haven't used blitz mode for quite some time, overall haven't used chesstempo a lot, I worked more with chessable courses like the Checkmate Patterns Manual. But back when I used it I really looked at all the puzzles properly, I took my time to understand those that were hard for me, of course. For me it felt like I was improving pattern recognition, yes, but first and foremost short and quick calculations. The adrenaline in having to solve these puzzles fast is really useful in actually learning something. You surely know how useful it can be to add emotions in order to actually memorize things. That's also why I highly prefer rated games with clocks.
I used standard mode for a long time, but those puzzles eventually got really, really hard, while I still sucked at many basic tactics and patterns. Chesstempo forced me to solve hard calculation exercises, that never came up in my games, never. Blitz tactics actually appear. It might be useful to use other resources too, sure, but for what the OP mentions I think standard tactics won't do the trick, because he will quickly have a rating way too high. That's probably the reason he solved a ton of tactics here in order to bring his rating down, so that he gets easier puzzles to improve at solving them.
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