Need help

@hangrad I was just trying to "translate" his idea to see whether that is what was meant...

@wargh #9
I must say that things were not that clear in the first game regarding this, but I meant that white opened up lines to let the black queen on b6 - which was first kind of isolated from the kingside - help defend over the 6th rank.

@hangrad #10
To get your tactics rating higher it helps to do several tactics puzzles daily, and being persistent, and for a long time.
For example : Doing 50 puzzles one night and then two weeks no puzzles is not a good rhythm. Just do them daily.
Here an old blog posting I wrote about tactics training.
www.chess.com/blog/achja/getting-better-at-tactics
HTH

@achja #12
I agree... as I said, I just got a bit confused by the way you said it (I was not sure). But now I know what you saw in there... thanks

@hangrad #10
Tips on tactics

I have no idea how to reach 2400 in tactics. You have to ask @achja! There must be some kind of dark magic :) But I can share with you how to reach 2200...

1 if I understand the position on the board and clearly see the move, or rather combination, I just go ahead and play it
2 if it does not show to myself in this way, I try to carefully observe what all is going on the board, all the tensions, weaknesses, threats, critical squares, etc.
3 if this does not bring a clue, I replay a few moves back to see how the position concretely changed and what (all) possibly “opens up” there
4 if this does not help either, I do not hesitate and replay the game from the move number 1, and I try to understand most of the motives and plans - at least roughly - that emerged throughout the game & I start to be really attentive when it comes to the moment that lead directly to the position to be solved
5 then I choose the 1st move & the following combination & usually solve the puzzle
6 after it is solved (or not :) I try to name the problem for myself and if it is something surprising for me, I try to understand it as a type of possible critical situation in a game
6 I always take my time, I can spend more than 15 min with a harder puzzle quit easily…
7 I make mistakes mostly by misunderstanding what the outcome should be (like searching for mate combo when there is some kind of a side effect to be reached.... ) or by being deterred by the seemingly "wrong" consequence of the combination that turns out (after following 2 moves) not to be bad at all... or I just blunder something really easy, of course...

I hope this helps a bit, good luck :)

@hangrad
i got to 2320 tactics rating once on lichess by just spending 30min on average on a single tactic and im only about 1300 rating on rapid and blitz.
that means almost everyone can get to 2400 tactics ratings by just brute forcing them over time.
i dropped down to 2100 only because i was being impatient(and partially of how to evaluate endgame positions).

one tip i can give, if u wanna spent a lot of time on a puzzle its important to rule out all the not so complicated lines on the first move, once u are sure the most complicated line can be the only move, u can save a lot of time not actually calculating it fully until u see the first computer response.

if u really wanna prove your tactics skill u should do blitz tactics on chesstempo, im 1460 rating there with about 3k puzzles to compare(u have to solve most puzzles in under 10-40 seconds to get points).

@achja , I took a second look at some of my games and I found out that I indeed exchange pieces when attacking, go backward and make space for my opponent. I must admit that I always feel anxious if I sac whithout seeing an immediate kill, I think I need to work on that too. I'll make a conscious effort in avoiding these mistakes. Thanks for these very important tips.

@hangrad thanks for the link, I'm guilty of attacking when my position is not even superior, sometimes I get away with it, but I need to follow that rule if I want to improve.

@wargh #15
One ingredient to reach higher tactics rating is : luck
Let's say there are 100 tactic puzzles, and 10 tactical motifs.
Then things would be much easier.
But because there's thousands of puzzles, and thousands of different chess positions with various tactical motifs and defensive resources and pittfals, things are more difficult.
2400+ is a peak rating.
If you do the puzzles when being tired or irritated, then you can easily lose 100 rating points if you cannot stop yourself doing them.
On chesstempo website I'm doing different series like "Problems I always got wrong" and "Problems I got wrong at least once", and the ratings for that can fluctuate still.
Going up and down 100 rating points can happen over a few days.
If you are lucky you get puzzles that you grasp perfectly and fast.
If you are unlucky you get puzzles that have motifs that your brains has not yet processed nicely, and you fail some of them.

I'm telling myself and others that tactics rating improvement is not the real goal. The real goal is to get better at tactics in general, and finding that improvement back in chess games that really matter, like otb team matches.
Also, tactical joy in games matters.
For example : I'm playing in a correspondence chess team, and this week I found a nice tactical finish in one of the games. Very pleased with that. The right mix of adrenaline and dopamine achieved !

Thank you.
I absolutely agree, luck is a part of it :)
Neither for me is tactics a goal. I just use it as one of the tools for learning to see more. Someone mentioned that it is enough them to spend a lot of time over the position. That does not work for me. I am doing tactics to learn how to use my "thinking" time more effectively, i.e. what to look for while staring at the board, how to better spot a critical position and a critical move. There is limit to what I can spot and tactics help me to recognise them as well as to cross them. I really like that all of the tactics on lichess come from real games and I can re-play them. Because like this I also can get to know various different plans and ideas of other people and let them sink in while just trying to solve puzzles...