Finding Motivation for Solving Tactic Puzzles
How to introduce competition into tactic training
I’m a person who thrives on competition. Growing up I played a lot of sports including Little League baseball when I was young then basketball and American football later on. I’ve also played many video/computer games competitively including Halo, Super Smash Bros and League of Legends. Of course, chess has also been a huge part of my life for the past 20 years too. The common thread between all of these things is the goal of outsmarting or outplaying your opponent(s) and winning the game. In contrast, I tend to not be invested as much into solo sports/games where there is no “opponent” fighting back against you. This is despite my dad trying many times to get me into his hobbies of golfing and fishing (sorry dad!)
What this means in regards to my chess improvement is a big focus on playing games (online and OTB tournaments) and less of a focus on solving tactics. Playing games puts you against another person on the other side of the board while tactic solving lacks this element. That being said, I have solved a LOT of tactics throughout my chess journey (the large majority were from books when I used to be a huge bookworm growing up). But it is definitely not my favorite type of training to do. Combine this with not being the most disciplined person in the world and we can see one potential reason for my recent 1-year rating plateau free fall (~100 FIDE points, ouch).
This got me wondering recently: “How can I make solving tactics more fun and competitive?” I am fully aware of the puzzle battle feature on Chess.com where you can play puzzle rush against another opponent. This does scratch the competitive itch a bit but the problem with this (for my level) is that you’re mainly focusing on the easier side of tactic training until you get through the mate-in-one and 1. Qxf7+ Kh8 2. Qf8+ Rxf8 3. Rxf8# (classic) sequences and make it into the 30+ range. The other issue with puzzle rush in general is that it prioritizes the time element and not the deep calculation side of things. Puzzle rush can be great for pattern recognition and burst calculation but I wanted to figure out how to make solving deep calculation puzzles into a competitive thing. And I think I’ve found a potential answer.
This is a list of all the recent puzzles that one Chess.com user (FM Faustino Oro) has attempted (successfully or unsuccessfully). Essentially, we have a list of puzzles that another player has tried to solve. Can I solve the puzzles correctly that this player got incorrect? Can I solve the ones they got correct faster than they did? Even if we both get the full answer incorrect, can I get more moves correct? This kind of comparison gives the puzzle solving a bit more of a competitive feel. Generally, comparing yourself to another person is not a great way to go about life but here we’re doing it for (selfish) motivation.
Let’s use one example from the list (ID #762266 near the bottom):
Black has just played …Qc1. My first instinct when looking at the position was to play 1. Bxe6 (using the pin on the 7th rank) but quickly realized that this would be a huge blunder due to 1…Bc6 which not only pins our queen to the king but also forks the rook at the same time. I am 99% sure that this is what the player above missed with a quick glance at the position since you can see that they tried solving the position in 4 seconds but got 0/3 moves of the sequence correct. I was honestly stumped here for a bit since there are no good checks or captures to make but after a bit of time I finally realized that I need to stop black’s threat of …Bc6 AND try to remove the defender of the f7-square with the move 1. Ba4! It’s a bit more of a “quiet” move but does have the big threat of Bxe8 followed by the invasion on the f7-pawn. After 1. Ba4 the computer responds with the move 1…Bd7 and we have to still be a bit careful here and capture the bishop with the correct piece. We need to play 2. Rxd7 since 2. Bxd7?? would allow 2…Rh8! when we actually face a mating attack against our own king all of the sudden. The difference with 2. Rxd7 is that we are winning the piece and also still threatening Qxf7+ which means that 2…Rh8 no longer works. The puzzle finishes with 2…Rxd7 3. Bxd7 and we got the correct answer.
Did it feel good to solve a puzzle correctly that Faustino Oro had gotten incorrect? Of course. Did I mess up a bunch of the same puzzles he did (and get wrong some of the ones he solved correctly)? Yep. Is it a bit of a vain way of looking at things? Sure. Did it motivate me to actually work on the puzzle and try hard?
Absolutely.
And this is the key point for myself. I was motivated to try hard at solving puzzles because of the comparison with another strong player rather than solving them lazily without any competitive motivation. Of course, in a perfect world I would always be motivated to work on my chess and solve puzzles for the pure improvement at calculation but unfortunately motivation doesn’t always work that way with us humans.
Now of course, being able to solve some puzzles that a very strong player got incorrect doesn’t make me better than this player or anything like that. I am simply using this method of puzzle solving to give me a bit of competitive dopamine boost and motivate me to try hard on difficult puzzles. Maybe it can help you to do the same thing if you struggle with puzzle-solving motivation.
Here’s how to do it:
Go to the puzzle stats page for a player. Let’s use Tyler1 (context on who he is here and here) as an example: https://www.chess.com/stats/puzzles/big_tonka_t. His puzzle rating is just under 3000 right now so if this is above/below your pay grade then go to the tactic leaderboard and find a player with a more comparable puzzle rating to you: https://www.chess.com/leaderboard/tactics
Scroll down to the “recent puzzles” list
Try to “beat” this player by solving the same puzzles they did but more accurately!
To be honest, I’m not really sure how beneficial this type of “comparison” training is but at the very least it has motivated me to try hard on a bunch of difficult puzzles with the goal of solving them better than another strong player. Also, I’m not only doing this with Faustino Oro’s recent puzzles but also the recent puzzles of many other strong titled players (especially ones who solve Chess.com puzzles consistently).
I’ve never heard of anyone else recommending or trying this out so if you do end up experimenting with it then I would love to hear from you in the comments below. Did it feel like it was useful at all for the sake of motivation or not?
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It’s interesting, but not quite the same because the other person has no idea they were beaten (or they won). You’re competing against them but they aren’t competing with you. I wouldn’t feel it that different to competing against myself.
But, some kind of competitive tactic training site/community/system which is more focused on actual serious training than something like Puzzle Battle would be wonderful! The chessable classrooms where the host can set up quizzes, etc. are quite cool, I remember winning a free chessable course of my choice from one of those. But that wouldn’t be convenient as your main tactics training.