I'm wondering what people around here use for tactical training?

I've been using Chess Tactics Server (CTS) to some success. It's lightning pace, but it is quite good at drilling in tactical themes, but perhaps there are better alternatives? I recently heard of Chesstempo.com, and I'd be interested in hearing some reviews about that if anyone is a regular on the site. If anyone uses any other resources, please post! I'd love to see what's out there!

Both CTS and chesstempo.com (CT) are quite good. I think CTS gets you into the (IMO bad) habit of just making the first move that pops into your head instead of analyzing the position. CT is nice in that you can use it in either normal (no clock so, IMO, you can relax and try to learn something) or blitz mode (if you want to keep working on those bad habits...). I also like the CT endgame problems, but you need to be premium to get more than 2 problems per day.

The Tactics Trainer on chess.com is nice, but you're limited to just a few problems a day if you aren't a premium member. Their Computer Workout feature is nice too, but I'm not sure what level of membership you need to use it without restriction. I also like their Chess Mentor lessons, but you need the most expensive ($96 per year) membership to access it.

I've always wondered if there was a redeeming quality of "the first move that pops into your head" (as you describe it) method on CTS. At the moment, I see it as a positive, training my mind to come up with the best candidate moves and think more efficiently. Certainly if you spam the first move you think is correct on CTS, it wouldn't help as much as learning to think quickly and come up with candidate moves, even if it sacrifices some calculation.

There's a great Silman article called the "Masked Grandmaster" telling the tale of a class player who played several jaw-dropping brilliancies simply by following the patterns in Vukovic's "The Art of Attack." The game-winning combination was less about calculating all the concrete details, but rather, identifying attack patterns and having faith it would work.

I think CTS tends to do well in the department of pattern recognition and thinking quickly, but there is certainly a lot of merit to deep calculation in a position/tactic. Perhaps I should start doing a few of those chess.com problems.

Also found this wonderful site:
http://www.wtharvey.com/

...which has a wealth of grandmaster problems and solutions o-O

http://www.jeremysilman.com/chess_tacti ... aster.html

Thanks for the tip- interesting article.

Your brain gets all your patterns within 3 seconds after looking at a chess board, the kind of time CTS gives you before you have to make a move. The kind of tactics CTS teaches is pure pattern recognition to the point where you start instantly seeing themes in the position you're looking at and can then work toward making that tactic work. It doesn't teach you calculation and the difference between calculation and pattern recognition is imo one of the points most people who say CTS encourages bad habits get wrong. You're supposed to play the first move that pops into your head because the first move that should pop into your head is the right move. Sometimes the position is complex enough that you have to double check, but if the move you were thinking of first wasn't right, that tells you something about your pattern recognition.

It's not CTS that encourages you to make the first move that pops into your head in a game, otb or internet, and I honestly never see how people can make that connection from an artificial training environment with time pressure to a real game. Clearly you have some problems to sort out that go way beyond your chess skills if you are acting that way in a game.

CTS and CT are pretty good, but I don't think they're entirely satisfactory for serious tactics training. I think the heavy emphasis on time on CTS and the rating system in both is a bit counterproductive. I think there's room for a much better tactics training website.

CTS does promote pattern recognition, but I think it's so quick as to be nearly counterproductive. When I used it a lot I became obsessed with my rating and moving quickly. It teaches you to make the intuitive move and then figure everything out, or to play through the tactic. Fuller calculation from the start is probably better. Maybe something like more time before the first move and then you need to move more quickly once you've made it.

My preferred method is still using a tactics book, although I might start using one of the ChessBase tactics programs.

Also, thanks for the Silman article!

I had the same problem but I started keeping track of how many problems I was getting right each time I used the site and aiming for at least 85% each time. This stopped me moving too quickly and my rating actually went up since.

My biggest problem with CTS is that the clock forces you to move quickly -- which for me keeps my rating from getting above a certain level. I don't seem to really learn anything new -- and I don't get served any higher level problems because my rating stays the same. And most of the problems I miss are problems I would have most likely seen in a game or if I had had 10 seconds instead of 3.

Hitch: I've spent many hours and thousands of $$$ on a shrink's couch trying to sort out my non-chess problems. It still doesn't change that *FOR ME* using CTS encourages my instinct to mentally jump on the first move that occurs to me -- which sometimes messes with my tactical ability, even in CC games. Everyone is different. If CTS helps you, use it. It doesn't seem to help me, so I go elsewhere.

I definitely think slower is better. you don't need to train for fast mistakes. your brain will recognize a pattern no matter how slow you learned it.

I hope you didn't take that personal as it wasn't directed against you or anyone on this site. What I said was referring to a few other discussions form different places over the internet.

CTS does make for long stretches of stagnation. The important thing is that you get the problem right. It may take your brain 10 seconds at first and your rating may take a hit, but in the long run, repetition is what creates a solid pattern library. Ignoring the clock during the problem is important, the clock works as a control mechanism after the fact. You will eventually be able to solve the problems much more quickly, at that point you'll probably have a rating jump and then more stagnation on a higher level. CTS is brutally honest in that regard and it takes a lot of time every single day to make discernible progress quickly.
I recognize that may not work for everyone, ultimately there are too many factors like time, age, and even playing level involved for me to say "this works". You may just be at a point where your pattern library is pretty much complete and you need to work on other areas like calculation. In that case doing exercises with CTS won't do you any good, except as a warm-up before a game. That may very well be the case for you as you've probably been playing chess longer than I'm alive . But I think the way you use CTS makes a huge difference if that is not the case.


That's not quite correct, pattern recognition is based on repetition. If you're solving 10 problems a day slowly you're not getting as much out of it for your pattern recognition as if you do 100 quick problems and go over the solution if you were wrong. The 10 slow problems will probably be better for your calculations skills though.

I prefer Chessimo aka "Personal chess trainer".
viewtopic.php?t=5507

I spent 10-15 minutes per day, every single day, on this program when i was improving my rating up to about 1800. I probably completed over 10,000 repetitions on this program. To this day my tactics are probably the strongest aspect of my game (relatively speaking of course!). Recently i started using the program again.

Although Chessimo is my first choice, I tend to prefer Chess Tactics Server over Chess Tempo. CTS has much better quality puzzles in my opinion. I happen to more or less agree with Hitchhiker: pattern recognition should be distinguished from calculation puzzles. TO train pattern recognition a person should really do puzzles in the thousands-- even if the puzzles are extremely easy.. The goal is to see a 5-move combination in a flash so that calculation is unnecessary.

Training calculation is another matter altogether. FOr that one i would get some difficult puzzles (EG, Perfect Your Chess by Volokitin) set an egg-timer for 5-10 minutes and calculate hard, then check the answer when the timer goes off. I've done this too with good results.

Chessimo sounds interesting, though apparently the free trial only gives you the first module... I'll probably just stick with CTS for now.

Does anyone here have any specific recommendations for positional training/analysis? I've just been going over master games for now, but perhaps there's a more automated/efficient solution out there?

I think I tried all of them:
- CTS: excellent for pattern recognition and instincts, free. Not good for calculation.
- chesstempo: trains both pattern recognition and instincts but the problems are computer-generated. Extremely many problems where, even if you find a winning move, you must sit back and find a better move. I find this very annoying. Free.
- ICC ProblemBot and TrainingBot: quite good problems, but unfortunately it doesn't function as CTS/chesstempo, with problem ratings. It can be seen as a tactical book.
- Personal Chess Trainer: that's a low quality program. the endgame section is horrible! There are many winning moves marked as mistakes. The authors didn't even bother to check the problems with an engine or with tablebases.
- chess.com: quite a good tactics trainer. I edited about 20% of those problems until I was banned from the site because I asked why cheating is tolerated. Not free.

JoshSpecht: are you the owner of this site? If so, why don't you make your own tactics trainer? Some Javascript code and a database to store the ratings is not that hard to do

Just one small correction to above post. Chesstempo problems are not computer generated, the positions are all from actual games or variations that could have originated in real games. They are selected by a computer algorithm that identifies the tactics, but they are not computer-generated positions, in fact the site prides itself on the fact that there are zero computer generated positions. Personally, I've used CTS, CT, and the tactics training module for CPT. All 3 are good resources. I just prefer CT. If I want to do blitz, there is a blitz mode, and if I want to do slow calculation, there is slow mode, so it to me is basically one site doing the work of 2. Granted, I do almost all of my tactics untimed. For faster stuff, I tend to flip through chess books, and solve positions off the page in my mind. No clicking necessary . Also, you can download 2 pdf files, one contains all of CTS problems, the other all of the solutions. Thus you can print out a few pages and just solve em that way, when you are on the go or whatever. I can't remember where I got em, the files are on my laptop which is inoperable at the moment.