The only thing you need is tactics. So, I've been told. I keep coming across these stories of players that do nothing but play games and study tactics. They don't study other chess books. They often brag about how they never studied openings or endgames. They only do tactics puzzles and play games.
It sounds too good to be true. You're pulling my leg, right? There's no way it can be that easy. Toss out the books, and do a couple of hours of tactics puzzles a day for a year and presto, you're 2000+ on Lichess.
It sounds too simple.
Because everyone is entitled to give free advice, no matter whether it works out well or not. Here‘s mine, I have the feeling that I should point it out all day, all night:
„Tactics are good, but I wouldn’t over-estimate them. It‘s rather like the „stopped ball“ in soccer, e.g. corners, penalties, free-kicks.
Don’t forget playing whole games, analyze, some pages of a book, some opening hints from a DVD or some recommendations given by stronger players. You need everything, and tactics are not everything. Moreover, you need some „practical tactical feeling“, not a „stopped“ exercise.“
Thank you for your advice
@Sarg0n . The "only do tactics" people remind me of the "only do squats" people in fitness forums. I've taken a more balanced approach to chess improvement myself. Though sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better off just doing another 5200 tactics puzzles instead, and another, and another...
If you have perfect calculation, there isn't a need for other skills... but most people cannot calculate perfectly.
2000+ is just an arbitrary number. There are weak and strong at all ratings.
Tactics are important at all levels of chess. Without seeing any tactics you are not going to beat anyone. However, there is much more to chess than JUST tactics.
Do you want to know the REAL difference between a weak player and strong player?
"I was totally winning, but then I blew it." is a common phrase in a weak players vocabulary.
As for higher rated players something like "I was losing, but I managed to snag a win or draw away from it" is a common phrase.
This game of mine is an example of just that. I was getting stomped much of the game. I didn't let them have a win for free though. I got a couple of pawns for the minor piece... Got that pawn on f4 bought me some time to attack. Got that rook on the half open b-file... Launched that a pawn as far and as fast as I could despite being down material. Probably shouldn't have played d5... oh well! Oh no... Bd4 looked nasty... Kept it complicated with c5 though. 37 e2... Still fighting! got to make my king go to d2 they underestimated me... Nf1!+ free rook, and from losing to winning just like that. Then they resigned...
And that's how winners play. Even from a losing position a winner will complicate it, and play for tricks and make it not easy on the opponent. You see, a lot of people got a little switch in their brain. It says, "I have won, I do not need to try anymore." So the brain shuts off, and suckout comeback victories like this one are possible more often than you realize.
At every level tactics are a huge factor of success. For sure " chess is 99% tactics " is an exageration,but it is a fundamental element of chess now and forever!
Chess is 99% tactics (Teichmann). But not 99% tactics trainer (Sarg0n).
I enjoy reading biographies of chess players. Seeing their best games together tells you of their style. Reading of their joy in victory or occasional defeat is very satisfying to me. These stories bring me almost as much pleasure as actually playing. Especially when analyzing a game and considering what you would play, and challenging the annotations. Then checking with a computer.
Oh, did somebody mention tactics? Well, I do puzzles occasionally and find these interesting, but playing through a whole game gives you not only middlegame, opening and endgame lessons, but , perhaps even more importantly, how and when to transition from one stage to another.
In the old days, engines didn't have opening books, endgame tablebases or any understanding of positional play yet were still able to beat the world's top players (ie Kasparov) through brute force calculation.
While it might help to study other areas, you can never be too good at tactics and if you're good enough at tactics you can calculate out everything else.
I could write out on a single piece of paper everything you need to know to reach 1900, maybe 2000. Everything else is hard work and applying what you know. Everyone is always looking for some "secret" though.
I’m an example of a near beginner with no opening repertoire or endgame knowledge, no positional understanding or knowledge of pawn structures, but I solved a few thousand tactics 2-3 times over and got 2150 rating here. I have no doubt that I can get to 2300 if I solve more. Every time I check my games with computer it points out simple, often 1 or 2 move tactics that both I and my opponent missed. I was particularly interested to learn that in my game VS an NM he missed about 5 or 6 easy tactics and so did I. I could not believe it. I always thought a NM would have such opening and middle game strategy memorized, and yet he was out of book early and missed everything, I didn’t take advantage of it over and over and eventually lost.
Tactics to a chess player are the strength and conditioning to an athlete. UFC 1 taught us that one can study Karate and Dimmak Death Touch and ninja blah blah blah all their life, and then in a real fight they get tackled by some former high school wrestler and head butted into a bloody mess in about 4 seconds. None of their secret strikes and pressure points work, since their opponent is faster and stronger.
Tactics to a chess player is technique to a classical musician. There are tons of pianists, for example, who are far more knowledgeable than some concert pianist. And yet concert pianist is better. He plays cleaner and faster. Simple. He has far better technique.
Success of programs like woodpecker method and 7 circles point us in that direction as well.
Yet another thing people often don’t understand is that when you solve tactics you’re working on every other aspect of chess as well, but practically because you’re trying it yourself first. I remember a puzzle where you had to force mate or get a material edge with a typical attack (Tal attack VS flanked black bishop castling position, aka white plays f5, Bh6, Qh4, Ng5 and looks out for R:f6 possibilities) well.. that attack is in opening books, as well as in middle game books, it’s in game collections, and in chapters about defense as well. But what better way to learn this than try doing it yourself? And then trying it again in a few days/weeks.
Notice there are NO strong chess players who are weak at tactics. But there are strong players who are good at tactics and bad at everything else.
