Junta Ikeda writes very insightfully about creating an identity as a tactician. He also suggests several books – perfect inspiration if you’re still looking for a few more holiday gifts :-D

Read here!

Tactics by the thousands

Don’t take his rating thresholds too literally, but his point is crucial: improvement happens gradually and takes time, and patience is essential. What you work on matters. Many believe they’ll get stronger faster by skipping the easy tactics and jumping straight to the hardest problems – but that’s a common misconception.

How can I state that with such confidence? I’ve seen it so often in students’ games. They understand the tactical exercises we go through together in training. But making the leap from understanding to reproducing requires repetition. And not just a few repetitions – an incredible number of them! At surprisingly low levels if you look at the puzzle rating on an internet site.

Book tips that open new perspectives

Ikeda ends by mentioning Daniel Kahneman’s classic Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s been on my reading list for a long time, so this was a welcome reminder.

And wouldn’t you know it, the book – along with its two modes of thinking  – is also mentioned in Nate Solon’s interview with Jacob Aagaard.

My link starts a bit into the interview, since the first part is spent waiting for Aagaard and dealing with technical issues. But once underway, they share fascinating thoughts and experiences on fundamental tactics training: pattern internalization and the sheer amount of work required to truly master it.

The “Woodpecker Method” and the power of repetition

The interview is long, moving between theory, current topics, and personal experiences – so it might be worth watching it in several sittings.

They briefly touch on their view of the traditional Woodpecker Method. As I understand both Nate and Jacob, we share the belief that repetition is effective only if you avoid mindlessly repeating a sequence you’ve memorized without truly understanding it. You find the improvement on this in sjakkSheila's woodpeckers where you decide yourself which themes you want to repeat, so that you can train extra on the patterns you get wrong more often.

Three building blocks of tactical performance

Jacob explains that tactical understanding – and the growth of strength – consists of several parts. I suspect it’s the third element, tactical intuition, that is often missing when players overlook what they themselves consider “easy” tactics in their own games:

• Piece mechanics
• Visual patterns
• Tactical intuition

Tactics vs. calculation

They also dive into the difference between tactics and analysis (calculation). Jacob emphasizes that one must think more slowly when analyzing.

Many of us who learned chess before today’s digital tools sometimes envy those who starts now. But in truth, we can be grateful we had to work with books and limited material – it forced us to develop a more thorough process.

Nowadays I often see students guessing the right move after only a few seconds of thought. To exaggerate a little: it’s as if they want to “get through” chess. They seem more concerned with whether the answer is right or wrong than with the process of reaching it.

If that mindset carries over into their games, they’re essentially playing guess‑chess. It might work for 30 or 50 moves – and only if their opponent does not spot the flaws. But with that approach you shouldn’t be surprised if you fall for a simple tactic ;-)