Thanks, I found that very entertaining. What program are you using for these quizzes?

It is interesting the technology that is available today to learn the game. When I started out there were no personal computers and you had to look at problems in a book and even those books had flaws in them that computers later found.

No wonder the kids here in Arizona give me a hard time!

Keep working at it. I believe that tactics can be learned. You are right to question some positions that you see in the tests. The best thing you can do is to set up a board and have a really good look at it and try to find a flaw. Most of the time the people who made these tests are correct, so look hard at why some of your ideas may not have been correct.

One last thought, try to not only find the key move, but try to find the follow-up to it. Remember, you are in a 'play to win' type scenario... if you look for the key move and the follow-up, it will better serve you in real games. You'll go from trying to find the key moves to looking for motifs... aka, patterns. Pattern recognition I feel is key to advancement in chess.

Good luck, and I wouldn't mind seeing some more like this presentation.

Thanks for the comments. The program is chess position trainer (http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com)
with the tactics pack (http://community.chesspositiontrainer.c ... y1006.aspx). The problems come in black and white levels 1-5 as well as a repertoire for drawing tactics (which is awesome but too small!).

The hardest part about tactics for me is all the possible replies by the other side, for each move there are a bunch of king move possibilities etc etc. I am very poor at calculating variations beyond 4-5 moves, even forced or straight line variations.

It just comes with time. Like I said, I think people can learn tactics. Once you start recognizing patterns you will automatically start picking up even more pattern sequences and then the quizzes will be easier.

Chess is a fun game. The more you learn, the more you find out that there is more to learn!