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Andrew posted an update
Hi Nelson! I’m around ~1,000 Elo (is there a way to put this in your profile?) I know you and many other coaches have said that practicing chess puzzles improves your tactics. I personally really do not enjoy chess puzzles, and I would prefer to play. GM Ben Finegold has also said that puzzles are of marginal usefulness at best, and that the best way to improve is to play a lot of games. I also tend to struggle with puzzles, get frustrated, and need hints often.
Do you think that some people can benefit from puzzles more than others, or do you have an approach or a suggestion for getting the most out of puzzles and how to balance this with practice in games? Just putting it out there. Thanks!
1 Comment-
Added the rating field in the profile upon your suggestion! Regarding the puzzles, I think that the bottom line is SOMEHOW you need to get certain patterns into your brain so it recognizes them when they pop up in your games. Tactics (or puzzles) are one of the better ways to do this. Will you have tactics in your games? Sure. And if you’re going back after every game and seeing which tactics were missed and learning from them, that’s totally fine. But if not, you’ll probably need to do at least some level of tactics to make sure your brain has those patterns. Hope this helps!
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