Number of tactical problems to do in ten minutes based upon rating.

At first you might want to spend the majority of your time studying tactics.   This will produce the most rapid improvement in your game.   Within a week or two you will start to feel more confident and win more games.  

I recommend using a Memorization List to organize the problems based upon how well you can them.

Time yourself and see how many problems you can do in ten minutes and do at least a total of 20 mintues per day.  In some cases it is more efficient to combine 2 sets of problems and do one 20 minute session instead of two ten minute sessions. Alternate different sets of tactical problems until you can acheive the goals listed in the chart. (For example, if there are 200 problems in a set, and your goal is to do 50 problems, then do a different set of 50 problems on 4 different days.)  

I have done the one move problems at least a hundred times.  As a result, I don't miss many one move tactics in my blitz games or tournament time pressure.  I very much believe that the trick to winning is to not make simple mistakes.  What good is it to study The Art of Positional Play if you are hanging pieces?

My one year leap from 1800 to 1900+ was largely due to Sharpen Your Tactics.  The one move problems also helped.

Chess Training Pocket Book has more difficult problems than most tactics books but is still enjoyable to read.  It is full of interesting ideas, a few of which have helped me to win games.  Studying it, however, requires a little bit of dedication.  It took me 7 months at the rate of ten minutes per day to reach the 1900 level goal listed in the chart above.

For the problems on these web pages, the maximum number of problems that you can do might be limited by your interenet speed.  For broadband/DSL users this should not be a problem, but for those with really slow connections, I could make the entire web site available on CDROM for a fee.

Hello,
If you manage to do the number of problems
for a rating in 10 minutes, how accurate do you
think your actual rating is?

regards,
Markku Siipola
Sweden

The number of problems per rating assumes that the reader has done the problems repeatedly as I recommend.

The #'s are a crude guess on my part, but there could be some accuracy.  I assume that an increase in rating class represents a 2 fold increase in the number of problems that can be done in ten minutes.  Most of the numbers listed at 1900 level are based upon what I can do.  I personally can do about 320 one movers in about 9 minutes.   Since I am rated in the mid 1900's (and going up) then I work backwards from there.  I reduced the number of problems by about a 2 fold decrease per rating class, but in most cases I rounded to the nearest 20, which is one web page of 20 problems, so the decrease from one class to the next lower is sometimes only a 2 fold decrease.

Part of the reason for my speed is that I have done the problems enough times that I almost have them memorized.  Nevertheless, as I get into tougher problems I still have to analyze.   Either way, it is impossible to memorize every position but I have programed into my brain the pattern recognition through sheer repetition.

Best wishes,

John Coffey