@Doofenshmirtz Doofenshmirtz, you said:
"1) How long do you spend on any given tactic in that difficulty range?
2) What can I do to improve? I've started playing games because really tactics are a means to an end, and I assumed (still do, really) that tactics are the heart of a game of chess. I'm starting to look at openings and later will spend time on end games but most of the game seems to be positional play which is what tactics is all about.
Actually I don't want to ask too many questions so that's enough for now."
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You should ask MORE questions. The more questions you ask, the quicker the chess-teachers will be able to pinpoint and target your disconnects and provide you the appropriate material to fill in the gaps of your understanding.
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The first point I want to smash into smithereens is this idea that "tactics are the heart of chess".
Tactics are NOT the primary consideration in chess, much less are they the heart of chess.
Listen carefully to the following sentence. It will save your chess life. Reread it DAILY until you can see it start to take effect in your move-choice selection:
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Fundamentals: EVERYTHING that a piece does/influences where it sits, present and future.
Tactics: EVERYTHING that happens/changes when a piece is moved.
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The idea that what separates us from the masters is their genius capacity to cold calculate thousands of variations, 100s of moves deep, is not why GMs clean the board with our tears every time, seemingly with little effort.
No. There is something else that is going on there. There is something primary happening there. There is something that tactics can't account for that they're employing. They're using a muscle in their brain that has to do with creativity and invention and ingenuity, a muscle that we don't even know exists.
This is why they can find tactical shots that are merely 3-4 moves deep, a depth that almost anyone can calculate, and yet these shots are 'invisible' to the rest of us until we're shown them.
If we played a friendly game with them, about 10 times a game they might give us the, "nuh uh don't move there because then (insert 2-3-4 move tactical shot here)."
They are NOT finding these tactical shots because of their tactical prowess, no, they are finding these tactical shots by first studying the fundamentals of the position.
They don't start with, "if I take there then they move there then I go here....naw...thats won't work. If I go here and then they go there....no that's not it either.
They start with understanding how that pawn on d5 communicates with all of the friendly pieces and all of the enemy pieces.
They start with understanding the communication and relationships between pieces.
They study the roles of all of the pieces, and without using tactics to test something, they know which pieces are overworked and can be targeted. They know which pieces are in danger of being distracted.
It's only when they feel they have the understanding do they then play the tactical combination through in order to prove if their THEORY and ANALYSIS was correct. In other words, "do the tactics allow to safely play what appears should be played here?"
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It's my contention that starting with move 1, GMs collect/gather the total influence of every piece on the board, understand what the pieces do, and then work from that narrative. They don't have to look at a board position to see and calculate that a piece is overworked, they understood that it would be overworked even before that specific variation even played out. It's not a matter of looking deep that earns FIDE titles. It's a matter of looking BROAD.
I'm not saying that there is no value in assuming that a side should "move to win" and then taking a few seconds each move to scan for a blunder or a lucky shot...CERTAINLY tactics have value or else all of the pieces would stay on their starting squares...
...but at the same time...
...we don't play 1. e4 just for the sake of playing 1. e4 either!!
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It's just to say that based on the fundamentals (where the pieces are and what they do there), we then employ tactics to justify our plans and targets.
Essentially, tactics are the law that mitigates where our plans can and can't work.
The plans, the creativity, the understanding, the invention, the ingenuity are primary.
Chess lives within these attributes.
Tactics are merely the tools that we use to effect our plans.
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I think I might have a lecture here that will make the point.
Try this on for size see how it fits:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTSSWtTpfjY