That's in effect the question from Amanuel, who writes (via email; lightly edited):
Hello FM Dennis Monokroussos
Everybody knows the most important aspect of chess is the ability to perform calculations, thus the reason why we all solve puzzles. However, nobody ever says which type of puzzles is better. I normally solve 100 puzzles, from [website], correctly each day to improve, but most of them don't feel like real life situations and usually have some sort of clue. Should I continue doing these puzzles that are fairly easy, or try going through the carefully selected puzzles from [tactics book]?
Thank you for reading my message, posting so many instructive videos, and for updating the blog so frequently and with such interesting material.
Perhaps it isn't addressed as often as it should be, but it's untrue that "nobody" ever discusses which kinds of puzzles to work on. For one thing, I've addressed this topic before, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to do so. In fact, I've addressed the issue fairly often, and probably will again. The following is a brief summary of some of my thoughts on the matter.
Basic tactical competence (definition): When I say that a player has basic tactical competence, I mean at least two things. First, they've reached a point where it's very rare for them to blunder mate or hang pieces. Maybe it happens sometimes, especially in time trouble or in a very difficult position, but it's not a besetting problem. Second, the player is familiar with basic ideas like generic double attacks, knight forks, pins, skewers, smothered mate and so on, and is capable of finding and applying such tactical themes in their games.
Step one (for beginners and tactically weak players): For players who lack basic tactical competence, the biggest need is to improve one's board vision and to learn elementary tactics. Simple, rote learning is very useful here.
Step two (for average club players who have reached basic tactical competence): Overlearning elementary tactics by continuing to practice them on a regular basis is useful, but it's time to move up to more challenging positions. (These can be positions that don't fit into the obvious categories, or if they do, the way in which they do isn't obvious to someone who has been working with the basic books.) Thus you consolidate your gains, the ideas you already know, but start to stake out new ground. This should start happening around 1500-1600 USCF/FIDE. (I don't count internet ratings here, which are very hard to calibrate with tournament ratings.)
Step three (for strong club players): The occasional look at elementary tactics is still worthwhile, to keep sharp, but the focus ought to be on more and more challenging material. If step one is 100% basic tactics and step two about 50-50, maybe give or take 10% either way, I think step three should be 80+% challenging tactics. Even this should be somewhat fine-grained. It's not necessary that all one's tactical work be migraine-inducing; I'd say around 1/4 to 1/2 of the hard work should be extremely hard. As with actual playing, a challenge is good, but if there's almost no chance of rising to the challenge it's good to aim a little lower most of the time.
As for particular works, I've listed them even more frequently, and don't really feel like doing so again at this point - interested parties can search my blog for specific resources. I'm also not interested in repeating myself this time around because it doesn't matter that much: there are tons of great tactics books out there. The key is to use them!
There's also ChessProblems which has fewer and easier problems, but with more hints.
Another aspect: Finding a tactical solution when you know it's there (because so you have been told) is one thing, seeing it over the board may be something else and harder. So two additional aspects could be:
1) How can one identify positions which are prone to tactical solutions? In practical play, this may come down to: When is it worth spending five, ten or twenty minutes searching for a combination?
2) For tactical exercises, it may be well worth looking at the entire game. How did the winning player build up his forces to allow for a tactical solution? When (often long bfore the final shot), where, why did things go wrong for the losing player?
For Web resources, this means: I would recommend giving the entire game along with the starting point of the exercise - preferably annotated, but this is time- and space-consuming. [this comment goes primarily to others, Susan Polgar is one name coming to my mind].
Is it better to analyse by setting up the position on the chess board or by directly from the diagram in the book or other source. If you use the computer for analysing your games(with or without Fritz, Rybka etc.), it might be better to analyse directly from the diagram. On the other hand, setting up the position on the board makes it much like actual OTB play though not as convenient as setting it up on the computer. Perhaps it doesn't really matter.
Link Via iTunes
(Link requires iTunes Software).
I really like the way the puzzles are presented. Instead of White to Move and mate in 4 the "mate puzzles" just say which side to move and mate. There is much more to the content than "mate puzzles" though. There are pawn endgame puzzles, stalemate puzzles, white (or black) to move and gain an advantage. The puzzle solutions range from being 2 moves deep to 13 moves deep (atleast so far, I've only worked through about 400 of the puzzles at this point).
There are some (but very few) errors in the software. The most annoying errors are the problems in which mate can be delivered by more than one piece sometimes only one of the pieces is the "correct solution". There is a free trial version but the full version only costs $5 (USD). I haven't used the trial version so I'm not sure what its limitations are.
I usually hover around 1900 USCF and I've found the puzzles that I've worked through so far both entertaining and challenging.
Also, I am in no way affiliated with Crazy Zebra, I just really like this software, and it is probably my most used iPhone app next to Safari and Mail.
Since I (and most likely most of us) are lazy so-and-so's, could you please post a link to your suggestions for tactical works?
Pretty please? With sugar on top? :)
Best,
-Marc-
(1) I'd call a "strong club player" someone who is at least nearing 2000.
(2) How long should one spend? It's up to you, but I'd say that if you don't feel like you're even close after 10-15 minutes, you might want to consult a hint if one is offered in the material, or to perhaps look up the first move of the solution and seek if you can solve the rest from there. I wouldn't spend 30 minutes on a position unless it was really a matter of pride.
(3) (Your (1):) There isn't a way, unless you're cheating. But the more tactical experience you have, the more likely you are to spot patterns that are there or could be there. Tactics isn't just "White to move and win"; it could be "White to move and set a fiendish trap". The more you practice your tactics - especially the more challenging sorts you get in advanced books - the better your feel will be.
(4) (Your (2):) I think there is a lot of value to looking at full games, but I don't think it's especially important for the sake of setting the backdrop to a particular tactical puzzle. (It's probably worthwhile in a fair number of cases, but whether it's always or even usually true, I doubt.) Sometimes it flows from the winner's plan, but sometimes it comes out of the blue. Further, while there may be value to seeing it in the context of a plan, you also want to have the tactic in your mind as an independent idea, not necessarily rooted to the game's context.
My real tactical problem (and maybe others have this too) is that I simply can't visualize, at all, unless I'm looking at the board/diagram -- my blindfold ability is essentially zero. So evaluating a variation reached three moves down the road is difficult for me, because I simply can't hold the image in my mind's eye: I have to repeatedly recalculate it from scratch.
I suspect it may be an innate genetic/cognitive incapacity on my part, since I really can't see anything in my mind's eye for more than an instant. Most of my (limited) chess success has been due to reasoning, pattern recognition, and "narrow-band" tactics that either don't involve the entire board, or are relatively straightforward pins and forks. So I'm perpetually caught between Steps Two and Three, in other words: frequently able to see a patterned mate in seven with little difficulty, but often hopeless in situations where precise, unstereotyped, moderately deep, full-board calculation is called for.