Hi all. When calculating tactics from a book of diagrams is it better to set up each puzzle on a real board and start calculating (without moving the pieces of course) as if it were an actual game or does it help your visualization skills better to just stick to the diagrams and solve them from that? It would be interesting to see what the average response is among masters. Thank you.
What ever works for you. The goal is to improve your visualization skills. You want to get to the point where you see them when you are playing. The only way is to repeat the tactics the next day , the next week, the next month. Problem solving is another fascinating game all together.
It depends on what I’m doing: For “Solve this” diagrams, I’d try mightily to do it in my head. For positions that require more thought, I’d prefer to set it up on a board.
Always put positions up on a board if it constituted going over several moves, like a partial game, or in-depth analysis. I find by doing that, I can better understand the mechanics and more importantly, the pattern of the position that the author is trying to convey.
So basically I do both. If I intend to go over a book, I always set up the position on a little analysis set I own. (Unless the book is specifically written so that you don’t need a chess set).
I’m not a master, but still have done a fair amount of study over the years.
Cough. 
Nowadays, I prefer computerized lessons. 
I’m just a master wannabe if that counts?! I believe you should make all attempts to solve from the diagram to increase visualation skills. First start out with one move mate problems, then two move etc. When you start to look at combinations that involve several moves you will begin to have difficulties especially with many pieces involved. When that happens and you can’t solve the puzzle, put the position on a physical board/pieces. You will be surprised at how many of these puzzles you will then solve. The reason for this is that we see
things in 3 dimentional mode. The diagram is only 2 dimentional. Even though it may be a pain to set up positions on a board, it more realistically simulates the real world. I also believe that you are more likely to remember that pattern. Have Fun!
How well one adjusts between a diagram and a three-dimensional setup varies widely from person to person. For some, the transition is easy. (In my case, I started reading chess books at a young age, so no problem.) At the other extreme, a few players seem to have a weird form of dyslexia (or something) where they strongly prefer one or the other, and have tremendous problems transitioning between them.
On the other hand, I suppose there a few fakers, who insist on standing up throughout the entire game, claiming they cannot visualize the board properly while sitting. This way they get to appear dominating, possibly intimidating their opponents.
Bill Smythe
I prefer looking at the positions set up on the board since that’s the way I’d be viewing them in an actual game. However if the problems are simple one or two movers then I may just look at the diagram in the book. I think I see better looking at board with real pieces. When I play online I tend to hang stuff more because I don’t see the board as clearly.
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Back when he had his monthly column in Chess Life, Larry Evans once wrote about this general topic. Just now I realize I have forgotten the detail of what Evans wrote; bummer.
Evans might have said [1] – If the display mode (2D or 3D) matters to you, then you are not calculating correctly.
Or Evans might have said [2] – It should not bother you that your chess book on an opening for Black prints all the diagrams from White’s perspective.
#1 is probably at least partly true.
#2 seems doubtful to me, a little too robotic.
For example, trying to learn from the book “An Explosive Chess Opening Repertoire for Black” by Jouni Yrjola and Jussi Tella (Gambit, 2001) is “trying”, partly because of this mis-orientation of the diagrams.
Maybe most important of all is that setting up real pieces is too time consuming; unless the purpose/plan is to move the pieces around.
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Keep it simple. Even children do it. Imagine a chess board and give each square a name. Algebraic chess notation is easiest and most useful. Now imagine chess pieces one at a time and place them on your mental chess board. Take time to notice how they look , the grain of the wood in the square, if they are centered, the name of the square, Do they have French shaves (nicks and scrapes)? Move one piece and notice what changes. Is the new square light or dark? What do you call the new square? What other squares do you now threaten? Flip the chess board 180 degrees and see it from the other side. Keep adding pieces and noticing the relationships. The more details you add make it easier to remember. Are the ears on the horse standing up or laid back? Is the slit on the Bishops miter too wide or too narrow?
When solving positions, I can’t really say if setting up the pieces on a board is better, because I have never done it that way. Ever. Not once. Not even when I was a 1200 player. Life is too short.
If I am serious about it, I set it up on the computer with Rybka, to actually play the positions and see what the issues are.
Visualizing is a skill worth learning, that can be done, by all accounts, with a small effort every couple of days over the span of a year.
Chess memory is extremely visual. It is important to study the way you intend to play. If you are only going to play online then perhaps trying to solve from the diagrams is OK. However, if you intend to play OTB, in tournaments, you should set up all the tactical positions you are trying to solve with a real board and pieces. Of course that will seem tedious but otherwise you will not get the benefit of the study. This has actually been known for many years. Here is a quote from the book Mastering Chess, which was first published in 1971, long before the computer age. The author of the chapter on tactics and combinations, Master Geoff Chandler, writes:
[b]You don’t play chess on chessboards the size of diagrams, yet students of the game will spend an hour or more solving positions from a book or magazine without the aid, or the proper use, of a set. Consequently, when they sit down to reproduce their skills, they find a mental block in some positions and labour to carry off elementary attacking methods. Give them the same position on a diagram and they find even the most difficult moves!
To aid in calculation, positions must be set up on a standard size board so that certain patterns are formed in the mind. The eye is trained at flowing along diagonals and files, instead of being fixed on a 1 1/2-inch square.
I was given this advice many years ago by a strong player after I had asked him how to improve my analysis. I owe him a lot. Players will find a marked improvement in their play if they take the time to study with the weapon they fight with, a standard sized set.
I’m fairly certain about the “diagram syndrome”. On a journey from Glasgow, I armed myself with a CHESS magazine to kill time. From the six “winning combinative play” positions I had only one right! I rarely study, or even try to solve. problems without a set and board. but on this occasion I did not have one. That night I dug out some really old CHESS magazines and with the aid of a set … 18 out of 18 correct! [/b]
There is evidence that more modern players also recognize the necessity of referring to a real set. Here is an excerpt from an interview with GM Teimur Radjabov, published in the June 2003 New in Chess magazine:
[b]Interviewer: How do you prepare? Anand once told me that after having analyzed a position with the computer he would look at it again on an actual board if he was going to play it. In order to create some transition from home preparation to the playing hall.
GM Radjabov: Yes, that’s what you do, because you want to know what it looks like on the board. After all, you are not going to play on the screen.[/b]
– NM Hal Terrie
(Edited for typos)
It could well be that, not only is such a person not calculating correctly, but that his mind works in the wrong way for his rating ever to exceed 1800 (or 2000, or 2200, or some other number).
Of course, almost all of us labor under some such limitation, whether related to 2D-vs-3D or not, so what else is new.
Bill Smythe
I appreciate the responses y’all. At the start of this year I decided to try to go through Fred Reinfelds two books of combos “1001 winning chess sacrifices and combinations” (the blue book) and “1001 brilliant checkmates”(the red one). If I want to train my combinational vision is 10 a day enough (5 from each book)? As of yesterday I have done 400 (200 from the blue book and 200 from the red one) or should I do 20-30? I am 147/200 in the blue book and 187/200 from the checkmate book. At the beginning I did set EVERY positition up on a regular board, even the easy ones I could solve in 2 seconds. Then after maybe 250-300 I started just solving them from the diagrams and only set the 15%-20% or so up on the board (without moving pieces of course) that I had dificulty with.
What’s the best use of my time? I don’t have a lot of time to devote to it and as I’m getting older I want to make the best use of training time. When I’m finished should I return and do them ALL again or only the ones I got wrong? Does doing combos a second time help implant them more firmly in your mind or should I start on a couple thousand new ones? Thanks everyone.
As I had mentioned, we see/think better in 3D vs 2d mode, my friend also reminded me that our brain also visualizes better by actually touching the pieces due to the tactile/sensory feedback. I know this to be true as I worked on computers, mainly printers for many years. It was so much easier to learn a machine by seeing it, even without touching it and visualizing how to take it apart and put it back together. It was also much more effective to go to a class to see and touch the machine than to view pictures in a book and figure it out.
A funny story of visualation: I was sitting next to a kid at a tournament who was playing an adult. When it was the adults turn to move the kid went around and stood behind the adult to get a better look at the position? After awhile I think the adult either got annoyed or tried to psyche out the kid by doing the same thing. It was hillarious to watch them circling the table after each of their moves.
When it comes to puzzles in a book, I also believe that if you cannot figure it out
even with a board(10-15 min), look up the answer and make note of it. Come back to it in about a month or 2. If you cannot figure it out again, then you will need to learn why not.
Since you are older and your time is limited, the best use of your time is to work on whatever is the weakest part of your game. When you finish the 2002 tactics, don’t just try to re-solve the ones you missed. Put them all together and see if there is a pattern. Be aware that some of the books’ “solutions” contain errors! Anyway, after solving the 2002 tactics the weakest part of your game will be something else, so switch to that instead.
With all due respect to Mr. Terrie, who generally knows what he is talking about, I still believe that setting up tactics on a chessboard is a waste of time. Chandler was a top GM. Radjabov is a top GM. Anand is the World Champion. So what? If you went to the gym, would you copy a top body-builder’s workout? Possibly yes, probably no.
If you were young and/or had lots of time, my advice would be very different. In that case you might consider following Terrie’s advice, although I still have doubts. As a counterpoint to what he said, Alexei Shirov doesn’t even own a chessboard, this according to Jonathan Levitt (Genius in Chess). I’m not recommending Shirov’s way either, just pointing out that even top players have different methods.
Yeah well I wouldn’t look at pictures of weights, I’d lift smaller ones.
Do what works best for you.
And some people believe chessbooks, including puzzle books are a waste of time.
Even after solving the 2002 puzzles, it does not mean the weakest part of your game is something else.
The difference between theory and practice applies here.
It may be somewhat easy solving the puzzles within the comfort of your couch.
But it becomes another story when the clock is ticking and you are running short of time with no one giving you the hint: White to Play and Win! Tactic = Decoy!
What is the reason for this failure to apply theory to practice? This is a puzzle in itself. Personality? Natural Talent for tactics? Will? Nerves?
The answer is probably different for different players, but in my case I think I know
what goes wrong. I run my games through a blunder check afterward, and I’m
amazed at the tactics that I miss (and sometimes that my opponent misses).
Sometimes the tactics are subtle, or just one move deeper than I analyzed during
the game. But when I miss a really obvious one, I think it must be mental laziness,
or lack of discipline.
I’ve heard the advice many times that a player should check for tactics every move,
and if I would simply do that I would certainly avoid some of these blunders. I start
out attempting to do that, but as the game goes on, my thinking seems to become
more narrow and focussed, and I start missing stuff.
Even so, studying and practicing tactics helps, in my opinion. As I’ve studied more,
I find I can analyze a particular position more clearly, and see further ahead.
Jim