“Until you are at least a high Class A player: Your first name is ‘Tactics’, your middle name is ‘Tactics’, and your last name is ‘Tactics’” - Ken Smith

Some time ago, I read an article claiming that the internet is full of advice like “just solve puzzles and you will become better” and how that is not true. The author had spent a long time doing tactics without seeing much improvement and concluded that chess requires far more than tactics practice.

I understand why they reached that conclusion. I've seen many players struggle with the exact same thing. To some extent it’s true, but in reality, the correct tactical training can give a huge boost.

Why harder isn't always better

Just to simplify things, I will divide puzzles into ‘easy’ and ‘hard’. Easy tactics are the ones that you can spot quite easily, less than a minute or two. Hard puzzles are where you usually have to spend long minutes to find the solution. These are the ones that you likely find when you click on the average “(Solve) Puzzles” on any chess website or application.

I noticed more difficult puzzles are praised by most players. These are the ones that “challenge you”, that will “help you raise your rating”. After a certain level, yes. These are excellent if you want to improve your calculation and your visualization, which are important skills, but if you don’t see threats and hanging pieces in one move, then it is useless to calculate even 3 moves ahead. So, until you see the board without bigger issues and you are familiar with most patterns, they shouldn't make up most of your training.

But how can easy puzzles be useful?

Regardless of rating, they can be valuable for anyone. How?

First of all, up until 1200-1400 chess.com rapid rating, people mostly lose by blundering pieces in one or two moves, or miss it when their opponent does it. Strategy matters far more on higher levels, when your rivals no longer blunder that much anymore.

“But Fruzsi, how do I make a plan? That’s important too, not just tactics”. Yes and no. You can find the perfect plan, but if you blunder your Queen in 2 moves, then it was all for nothing. On the other hand, even if you are unsure of what your plan should be, but you play an okay and safe move, and you watch out for your opponent’s blunders, you will be much more successful on the long run.

This is where easy puzzles come into the picture. They will help you learn the main motifs in chess, will strengthen your board vision, leading to fewer blunders. Also, during a match you shouldn’t spend all your time and energy unnecessarily on finding a simple fork or a pin, when you should focus on things like plan making, strategy, and so on. Practice the patterns beforehand, so you can notice them far faster in your games.

To improve your pattern recognition, do hundreds (or thousands, if you have the time :)) of easy tactics for each tactical motif (like; mate in 1-2, skewers, annihilation, discovered attacks, etc.). It might sound like a lot, but since they are simple they won’t take that long, and you can do them whenever you have a couple of minutes free or when you’re too tired to do something more demanding. I have ~2400 blitz rating, but even I jumped up 100-200 points in the past few years partially thanks to going through easy tactics with my students.

Another time when they could come in handy (even for high-level players) is when you are about to play a chess game. Your brain is probably not in ‘chess mode’ yet when you sit down to play after a long day. By solving them you won’t only get some confidence boost but you will also warm your mind up for the battle!

Also, if the majority of the games you play are blitz and bullet, then doing these will especially help you. In these time controls, you simply won't have time to calculate very much.

Whose job is it to find the best continuation for your opponent?

Yours and the opponent’s. Yes, you read that well; both of yours :) In order to become a good chess player, in most cases you will have to calculate and find the best moves for your opponent as well.

“Isn’t it their job to find the best move for them? I do my business, they do theirs.”

Nope. If you are not aware of your rival’s possible best responses, then your calculation will be shallow. I remember the good old times, when my coach would send my homework back to me, because even if I found the right move/idea, I didn’t find the best defense for my opponent, and I had to spend even more time on the position…

If you can’t stop this bad habit, work through tactic books where you will be forced to do this!

Puzzles are not like games!

Another huge mistake I see is that certain chess players treat the online puzzles like they were games that they had to play out against the computer. Most sites even reward you for speed, but go against the temptation. Before making a move, try to calculate everything out until you are sure of your solution. Why? Because this is how you can properly practice calculation and visualization. If you can see almost perfectly until 2-3 moves, you are already better than most players, let alone being able to see even further.

This can be tiring, but it’s worth the time and effort. Remember: your goal is to get stronger, not finding the solution quickly, nor increasing your puzzle rating. It’s better to solve 3 puzzles slowly and correctly than 10 carelessly. High puzzle rating is fancy, but unfortunately it means close to nothing.

Don’t draw arrows, you are not Hikaru

Talking about mistakes… you are not the kind of person who is drawing arrows in positions to calculate better, right? Don’t listen to the dark side, you don’t want to develop lazy habits. When you play over the board, there will be no arrows to help you, nor when you are short on time.

‘But Hikaru does it too!’

Yes, but not for himself, for YOU, so you can understand better what he is thinking. Don’t send your visualization skills to retirement this way!

The absolute worst mistake: not doing puzzles at all

“Puzzles are pointless. Why would you solve positions that will never occur in my games?”

The position won’t happen, that’s true. But the patterns will appear, and you will also need to practice how to calculate and visualize, so once you have to do it in your game you will be much quicker and more accurate.

I would even go so far to say that tactics are the muscles in chess, you always have to train with them to be in shape. A couple of puzzles a day will keep the blunders away!

Just kidding. You will always blunder, everyone blunders, we are only human. But it does matter how often; every second move? Once in every game? Twice in every 50 games? There is a difference :)

Where to find good puzzles?

I might sound like a grandma, but nowadays everything is digitalized, and I think there was some beauty in studying from physical books, because they really taught us valuable habits. They taught us patience; you couldn’t just play whatever you wanted when you got annoyed with a position. Very often the tactic was only from White’s perspective, even if you had to find the solution for Black. We had to be able to see the right moves also from the opponent’s perspective (if you are up for a challenge, try to flip the board when you do tactics online, and search for the solution for the other side!).

There are many great resources on the topic, here are some of my favourites:

• CT-ART is one of the best collections ever, it’s mostly based on old classics.

• As a child I did my fair share of exercises from Maxim Blokh books.

• I also liked 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners.

• For advanced players, The Woodpecker Method looked like an interesting way to further level up one’s skills.

• I love the wide selection of ChessMood’s Tactic Ninja and Mating Matador courses (they have other great materials too, and if you decide to subscribe to them, you can get 20% off with my LINK)

• If you prefer practicing for free, Lichess also has a good database of themed puzzles. If you hover over Puzzles > Puzzle themes and scroll down to Motifs/Advanced/Mates/Mate themes. You can also set the difficulty level to “Easiest (-600)” for pattern training, in which case you don’t need them to be rated.

I also made a video on YouTube about the topic, please feel free to check it out and subscribe! :)

Don't give up on tactical training just because it hasn’t helped you yet. Your pattern recognition and tactical vision won’t develop overnight, so you need to keep practicing patiently and thoughtfully. One day you'll start spotting combinations that used to feel invisible.

Now, before go and get your puzzle training done, let me know in the comments what book, application, website or method helped you the most in this matter!

If you’re looking for more personalized help with your chess, you can find information about my coaching HERE. :)

Here is one of my favourite mate-in-two exercises from Susan Polgar's 200 Checkmates book, White to play and mate in 2! Can you find it?

In serious tournaments there is usually a very strict rule: if you’re more than 15 minutes late, you will lose. When I sat down at the board and started the clocks, my opponent was still nowhere to be seen. I think arriving on time and giving yourself a few minutes to “get in the mood” is a really underrated element of tournament play. It helps you get your thoughts straight and start focusing on the game before you even begin. I can’t say I’m completely innocent when it comes to this either, I struggle with time management even off the board. Whenever this happens, I like to spend a few minutes to recover from the rush and get into the right mindset before I make my first move.

After my rival arrived in a hurry, we shook hands, and they quickly answered 1.e4 with c5.

Let’s stop scrolling, and let’s look at this position for a moment! What do you think was wrong with this seemingly natural move (Qc7) that gets out of the pin?

Likely to catch up for the few lost minutes after being late, my opponent blitzed out their first few moves (after each move we got 30 seconds). If you catch yourself doing that, remember to slow down, no one is chasing you. It might seem like a good idea or completely harmless, but it can cost you the whole point. Things can go wrong in the opening.

Let’s do a quick evaluation. Equal material, both Kings are in the middle, but mine can still hide easily. My pieces are developed, I almost finished with the opening stage, and can start attacking almost immediately. Black still needs a couple of moves to bring out their army and has to spend several more moves fixing their issues. But don’t be mistaken, this is only a temporary advantage, as given enough moves, all these issues will be solved.

How would you continue after g5? Taking on g5 with the Knight seems tempting, but do you think it’s worth it? Let’s find out!

Although my play was not 100% perfect, and my opponent gave me a few opportunities, I think we can still draw a few important conclusions from this game:

1. Poor development is a temporary disadvantage, which means that with enough time (moves) it can be resolved. You will need to be quick.

2. Look for active moves that keep improving your position (if you can, try doing it almost every move), so you can further delay or limit their improvement and get an even stronger attack!

3. Open the position with pawn breaks and pawn exchanges if their King is stuck in the middle! You need open lines, ranks or diagonals so you can bring your pieces into the attack more easily.

4. Try to avoid exchanging Queens if the enemy King is exposed! Otherwise you will not be able to take advantage of their situation.

5. Don’t sacrifice unless you clearly understand the compensation you’re getting! Many players fall into the trap of sacrificing to make the position even more exciting or “beautiful”, but be careful. Sometimes these sacrifices just make your job harder, and you can easily lose your initiative. A boring but solid win is far better than a flashy, “brilliant” game that you almost won but ultimately lost.

6. Don’t be upset if you can’t give an early mate. In positions like these, checkmate is actually quite rare, and that’s perfectly fine. What matters is that you win enough material or get so ahead in your plan that they can no longer catch up.

Have you ever had a game where your opponent fell behind in development, but you weren’t sure how to punish it? Or maybe you managed to convert it successfully? What principles helped you the most? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

If you're looking for more personalized help with your chess, you can find information about my coaching HERE. :)

In my first post, I’d like to tell you more about myself and my chess career, so you can get to know the person behind my future articles a little better (and I hope to get to know you better too along the way!).

As a little child, I often saw my family members play a strange board game against each other, and I couldn’t resist placing my little head on the chessboard to examine what was going on. Unfortunately, my parents thought this game was not for children, so they sent me away. This went on for quite some time, until one day in kindergarten, a kind lady came and introduced chess to us, and explained how each piece moves.

Following that, I went home proudly, convinced that I finally knew how to play *that game*, and that my parents would have no choice but to accept my challenge. Eventually, after a couple of eye rolls, my father gave in, and, as expected, he won our match while reading the newspaper and watching TV.

It wasn’t until I was 8 years old that I went to my first competition. My mother came home one day and excitedly told me that a small (rapid) chess tournament was being organized in the central park of our town, asking if I wanted to play. Of course I did! :)

After some consideration, my mom realized that since I’d be playing against adults, I needed to be a bit more prepared than I was. So she taught me a nice little trick: the Scholar’s Mate. Imagining how cool I’d be with my unbeatable new weapon, I sat down for the first round. You can probably guess how successful I was, naturally, no one fell for my early checkmate attack. However, one man (my first coach-to-be) told my mom that he saw “the fire in my eyes” and that he would like to teach me more about chess, if I wanted to as well. This is where my chess journey began.

From then on, I had weekly coaching sessions and attended blitz, rapid, or classical tournaments in the region or around the country almost every month. It didn’t matter whether they were for girls or boys, children or adults, which certainly made me a stronger player, especially since I was often facing stronger opponents.

Since school wasn’t too hard for me, my teachers allowed me to miss classes and were genuinely supportive about my extracurricular interest. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about most of my peers. Chess was definitely not the coolest activity back then, especially if you combined it with good grades. Nevertheless, I found good, lifelong friends at tournaments. I still look back fondly on chess camps and competitions where we had tons of fun, while playing chess or other games or staying up late discussing life, even though the adults had ordered us to sleep long before.

These friends helped me stay motivated even during harder, uninspiring days, especially since these were the only times I could see them, and because as they were progressing, I had to keep up with them.

As I climbed the rating ladder, I often won or finished on the podium at the National Youth Championships, qualifying for the Youth European Union-, Youth European-, and Youth World Chess Championships. Sadly, I didn’t have the chance to represent my country at the latter, but I did win silver and bronze medals at the Youth European Union Championship and finished 6th (tied for 3rd) at the Youth European Rapid Championship.

Before high school, due to some difficult personal events in my life that affected my performance and confidence, I was left without proper guidance, working with teachers only on and off. This changed after a couple of months, when my school’s team was preparing for the National Team Student Championship, and another player’s coach, FM Ernő Dede, came to help us.

After we won the gold medal at the competition, he took me under his wing, helping me regain my motivation and love for the game. Soon, I was back on track with my chess improvement. This period was probably the most fruitful of my chess career, as not long after getting a new coach, I earned a Woman International Master norm and a Woman Grandmaster norm, and went from approximately 2050 rating points to 2266 in a short time.

Ernő was not only a coach to me, but also a mentor; someone I could talk to about almost anything, shepherding me through both chess and life. Thanks to him, I was given multiple opportunities, acquired new skills, traveled, and learned more about the world, all of which helped me grow both as a player and as a person.

Ernő also gave me a little push to teach chess. On one occasion, he organized a chess camp for his students and ordered me to teach them one morning. I reluctantly accepted after a couple of “I can’t do this!” — “Yes, you can” exchanges. I ended up enjoying it so much that later on, I even accompanied a few of those students to the National Team Student Championship as a team captain, when I was too old to participate as a player.

As the graduation exam was approaching, I found myself at a point in my life where I had to decide whether to pursue chess or become a doctor, as my teachers and family were insisting. Chess is an amazing game, but making a living solely from playing is brutal, and the amount of sacrifice one has to put into it may never pay off. The world is far too big and interesting to focus exclusively on one subject, giving up everything else (at least for me).

After realizing that neither of these paths was truly for me, I ended up submitting my application to psychology school, with sport psychology in mind as a possible direction. This way, I could continue studying and playing chess without fully abandoning either.

I had a promising start at university, as I was invited to a chess camp with the members of the Olympic Women’s Team, which piqued my motivation for a while. At the same time, being exposed to a completely new environment after flying out of the nest, missing my chess friends as they began their young adult lives, and my favorite coach, Ernő, falling seriously ill (he sadly passed away a few years later) caused that motivation to gradually fade.

Things might have been different if I had found someone new to learn from, but due to a terrible experience with a former teacher, I was less keen on doing so. On top of that, going on Erasmus to Italy and dealing with performance anxiety in tournaments only added to this process. After all, chess is far more enjoyable when you play it for fun, without constantly worrying about results, ratings and prizes. :)

The first time I coached professionally, was during my higher education years, when I got the chance to teach chess to groups of little children in a kindergarten and in an elementary school, later individually as well, both offline and online. It definitely had its funny moments, except for when I was mistaken for an eighth grader in the elementary school at the age of 20, or when a 7 y/o wanted to bite me. However, once I went on the previously mentioned Erasmus and later moved to Greece, I had to look for other prospects.

Years passed, COVID struck the world, and a year later I decided to give chess streaming on Twitch a try. I didn’t have too much hope for it, considering that I’m an introvert and it was far beyond my comfort zone, especially since I was also much shyer at the time. Yet, I ended up enjoying it, talking and getting to know my audience really cheered me up while I was trying to finish my thesis and exams at university, in the Work and Organizational Psychology department, which I had continued with after my Bachelor’s degree.

Once I graduated, I realized coaching was what I wanted to do, but this time with adult improvers. I completely fell in love with this profession; I love getting to know people from different countries and learning more about them and their cultures, joking around during lessons, and, most importantly, seeing them grow their understanding of this game. :)

As for my chess career, it turns out the tables have turned. As a child, I enjoyed playing and sort of hated studying, but now I am more fond of learning than actually participating in tourneys or games. I still do these from time to time, and I even set some goals for myself (like finally earning the WIM title), but I take part in them less frequently.

Looking back, chess has never been just a game for me. It shaped who I am, tested my limits, and offered refuge when it was needed. Even though its role in my life has changed through the years, thanks to chess I met some of the most important people in my life, and it also gave me some of the most beautiful memories.

Through this blog, I’d like to share not only practical advice about chess improvement and psychology, but also the thoughts, struggles, and lessons that come with this journey. My main goal is to help you improve as a player, but also to feel more at ease with the ups and downs that come with this frustrating yet amazing game.

If any of this resonates with you and you’d like to follow along, don’t forget to subscribe! :)