Completed Level 10 yesterday and I'm now well into Level 20. I continue to be somewhat surprised by the kinds of problems that I miss at these initial levels. There seems to be a pattern of some kind to them, but I can't put my finger on it. Often they are positions in which there is a series of sacrifices with forced responses ending in an odd mate with a pawn or something. Initially I was missing smothered mates and pieces sitting off in the opposite corner of the board, but I've seen the last few of those that have come up.
With my poor performance (~80% so far) on the "easy" part of the course, I look forward to the more difficult problems ahead with some trepidation. Maybe I'll get suddenly smarter?
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2 comments:
Stay at it. I found doing each level 7 times before moving to the next was very helpful. This was true once I got to the higher levels.
Remember, the first time through, you are looking at things you may never have looked at before so you are bound to miss these "simple" tactics. The trick is to understand why you over looked it... fatigue, hyperfocused on one section of the board, did look at all teh captures? all these have a play in the recognition.
Good luck!
The worse you perform, the more there is to gain.
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