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Sets of tactical problems. | 1000 | 1100 | 1200 | 1300 | 1400 | 1500 | 1600 | 1700 | 1800 | 1900 |
White to move and win in 1 move: 1w 1w1 1w2 1w3 1w4 1w5 1w6 1w7 1w8 1w9 1w10 1w11 1w12 1w13 1w14 1w15 | 20 | 40 | 80 | 160 | 300 | 310 | ||||
Black to move and win in 1 move: 1b 1b1 1b2 1b3 1b4 1b5 1b6 1b7 1b8 1b9 1b10 1b11 1b12 1b13 1b14 1b15 | 20 | 40 | 80 | 160 | 300 | 320 | ||||
White to move and win in 2 moves: 2w 2w1 2w2 2w3 2w4 2w5 2w6 2w7 2w8 2w9 2w10 2w11 | 20 | 40 | 80 | 160 | 236 | |||||
Black to move and win in 2 moves: 2b 2b1 2b2 2b3 2b4 2b5 2b6 2b7 2b8 2b9 2b10 2b11 2b12 2b13 2b14 2b15 | 20 | 40 | 80 | 160 | 220 | |||||
White to move and win in 3 movess: 3w 3w1 3w2 3w3 3w4 3w5 3w6 3w7 3w8 3w9 | 20 | 60 | 140 | |||||||
Black to move and win in 3 moves: 3b 3b1 3b2 3b3 3b4 3b5 3b6 3b7 3b8 3b9 | 20 | 40 | 100 | |||||||
White to move and win in 4 movess: 4w 4w1 4w2 4w3 4w4 | 6 | 26 | 46 | |||||||
Black to move and win in 4 moves: 4b 4b1 4b2 4b3 4b4 | 20 | 40 | ||||||||
Sharpen Your Tactics Problems 1 to 200 | 20 | 40 | 100 | 200 | ||||||
Sharpen Your Tactics Problems 201 to 314 | 20 | 40 | 100 | 114 | ||||||
Sharpen Your Tactics Problems 316 to 400 (Skip 322.) | 20 | 40 | 84 | |||||||
1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate! Problems 1 to 150 | 20 | 50 | ||||||||
Sharpen Your Tactics Problems 401 to 500 (Skip *** and **** problems.) |
20 | 50 | ||||||||
Chess Training Pocket Book Problems 1 to 300 | 20 | 50 |
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