Chess Tactics. How to Improve?

Everyone knows that chess tactics is 90% of chess! You need to sharpen your level every day. Consistency here is important! Tactics can help you even in hopeless positions, when almost nothing can change the result of the game. But, then....Boom! And a brilliant sacrifice can make your day and help you survive your game!

How to work with tactics?

First, you need to learn each tactical motif individually with a coach. He will explain to you the main ideas, paterns etc. Also, will show basic examples from classical games, where this idea is especially clear! After that, you will do puzzles without the coach's help. Sometimes he can give you a hint or discuss with you if something is unclear.

Then your goal is to practice the same tactical motif as often as possible.

Where to find chess puzzles?

There are plenty of chess websites now. But the most popular and huge is chess.com. You can find many options there that will help you. You need to start from "Vision." This exercise will help you remember every name and colour of the chessboard, which is important for calculation. Then you can proceed to "Custom Puzzles". Here you can practice with each tactical theme separately. If you learned today with the coach "fork", then choose "fork" and keep practicing with this motif only! You will see the main pattern and similar positions, making it easier to recognize opportunities. Your daily chess routine might be connected with "Daily Puzzle". It will help you build a daily habit of solving puzzles. "Puzzle Battle" will give you a competitive mood to check your tactical skills against other people around the world! "Puzzle Rush" will help you if you are already good at tactics and want to sharpen your skills and speed up your solutions! For quick decisions, you can choose 3- or 5-minute games. For less experienced players, it would be good to choose "Survival" where there are no time limits, and you will lose after 3 mistakes.

Hopefully guys! This article provides a basic overview of improving chess tactics. Feel free to send me a challenge for a game or puzzle battle on chess.com. My name there is Kyrylo26. But even better, join chess lessons and chess tournaments at ChessUA Club in Brantford! We are open for you 7 days per week!