10,000 Kicks
One of the reasons it can be so difficult to understand what needs improvement is the fact that
there seems to be no single objective answer. I’ve read of people who achieved
Master status without ever knowing the Lucena position, or even how to
checkmate with the Bishop and Knight! There are folks who understand very
little strategy but have such well-tuned tactics that they soar to 2000+ with
little difficulty.
One thing seems to be true, however: having poor tactical
ability will cap your rating much sooner than any other ability. That’s how important tactics are.
It seems you can get pretty far on tactics alone. But there
is yet a limit to growth when taking this route. You won’t understand the finer
nuances of a position, which is often required to succeed at the Master level.
A person with mediocre positional insight may very well
still attain Master status. A person with mediocre tactical ability, however,
may likely never make it past 1600.
There is much to say about this: primarily, that this is the
reason why so many people fail to improve. Juniors, who are on a well laid-out
path, are learning positional concepts while acquiring tactical abilities and
burning those mating patterns into their lobes. Adults, on the other hand, don’t
usually put in the same effort, and those who do are putting in the wrong kind of effort.
I’ll give an example. Let’s call him Jimmy. Jimmy probably
possesses more positional knowledge than anyone in our club. He is so full of
knowledge that it oozes from him. He’s practically an expert in most of his
openings, and he is well-versed in strategy. Yet he remains under 2000, and has
for quite a long time, despite working very, very hard at improving. What is
going on here? He is intelligent, dedicated, and has a strong work ethic
combined with motivation and plenty of over-the-board playing time.
I’ll tell you what’s going on here. Jimmy doesn’t practice
tactics. He hates them. He has actually stated, on several occasions, “I know
all the tactics I need.”
Ahem. No you don’t, dude. Furthermore, knowing them is very different from
being so proficient at them that you
can always see them, with little or no effort, in your games.
There’s more to the story. I firmly believe that most people
study tactics incorrectly. Most ‘A’ players are studying advanced tactics. But
some will argue that what is needed is for them to go back to the basics and study those. For example, a collection
of 100 knight forks with a rating of 1200-1400 for the set. Study them, study them
more, then study them again and again. You ought to know them so well that you
can solve any of them instantly. Muscle memory. Pattern recognition.
Mushin.
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