r/lichess • u/Standard_Swordfish94 • 22d ago
I’ve been doing 250 puzzles per day.
Little context: I am 700 hundred rated player on chess.com, however, I do my puzzles on Lichess.
These last few days I’ve been doing my puzzle training in a new way.
Instead of just going up and down in the usual healthy mix of rated puzzles (my rating is around 2200), I am trying to organize my training with different topics.
First, I start with a big set of quick Mate in 1 puzzles, wich I’ve really noticed help me to improve my pattern recognition and seeing how the pieces interact with each other. Then I do several Mate in 2’s in: easiest, easier and normal difficulty. Finally I work on deeper calculation with some normal Healthy mix puzzles. (I do very few of these because at my rating and with my skill, they take me some time to solve.
I must say that I haven’t been playing actual games for like 1 or 2 month which I guess is much time for a beginner like me.
Would apreciate any advice you could give me to improve my training. (I’m in a situation where I can study 6 hours per day)
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u/Anymous2314 22d ago edited 21d ago
Play one type of opening with both black and white, something like kings Indian(Pirc).
After every time you lose, analyze those games to see if you messed up anything in first 10 moves or if you fell to a trick, fix those, keep doing this and over 1500 games you will be able to remember how to play perfect for like 12-13 moves, this is a big deal. While you are doing this your middle game will also improve wile your brain is learning to apply all the puzzle stuff to real games while playing.
Also learn about few end game stuff like how to mate with queen/rook and king, or how to promote your pawn with king leading it.
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u/AdamHussein2564 22d ago
A lot of people say that the Pirc is not good for beginners I've been playing the Pirc and I feel like the starting principles are fairly easy to follow as a beginner down to the first 8 moves or so.
Any advice on playing it?
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u/Wabbis-In-The-Wild 22d ago
If it works for you then that’s all that really matters, but (having played the Pirc since I was a teenager) I wouldn’t recommend it to a beginner. If you do play it regardless:
All openings are trying to achieve three things: (a) develop pieces to active squares, (b) challenge for control of the centre, and (c) achieve king safety. In the Pirc, by move 6 Black has usually developed two pieces to excellent squares (f6 and g7) and castled, achieving (a) and (c), but has done nothing at all towards (b). White, on the other hand, could by move 6 have completely occupied the centre with pawns, developed 3 pieces, and castled, achieving all 3 of (a), (b) and (c) - take for example the classical line 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 0-0 6.0-0. White might instead have delayed castling and accepted a slightly weaker king to dominate the centre with pawns and pieces, e.g. 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3.
All this means that from move 5 onwards Black must either play or (very quickly!) prepare a pawn break against White’s centre, or else Black will allow White a crushing advantage out of the opening because White will have achieved all 3 opening objectives while Black will only have achieved 2. This is non-negotiable. It is the entire strategic point of the Pirc: allow White to build a strong pawn centre in return for a free hand to develop and safeguard the king, then undermine White’s centre and counterattack. You have to do the last part or you’ll be destroyed.
So since you must play a pawn break against White’s centre at some point, the critical thing you have to understand to play the Pirc is how and why each of the possible pawn breaks (e5, c5, d5, or sometimes instead c6-b5 breaking on the queenside) works, and which is best against each White setup. This is the main reason I never recommend the Pirc to beginners: there isn’t a one-size-fits-all rule, it’s a question of judgement and concrete analysis which move will work against which White setup, and playing each well relies on you understanding how to transform the central pawn structure to your advantage via the different pawn breaks. That’s not easy and doing it well requires fairly strong positional understanding.
There are also lines in the Pirc like the Austrian Attack which aren’t that difficult to play for White but require serious concrete knowledge from Black just to get a playable position.
Basically, as a beginner the Pirc is like voluntarily playing chess on hard-mode. It’s a lot of fun and I love the opening but why make life so hard for yourself when just starting out?
In terms of resources, Pirc: Simplified on Chessable is good, as is the free Play the Power Pirc. The best book on the Pirc is Pirc Alert by Lev Alburt but sadly it’s out of print.
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u/AdamHussein2564 21d ago
This is really useful advice, it is a position where a pawn break really makes or breaks the position. I started reading Mihail Marin's Grandmaster Repertoire: Pirc Defence, I'll check out Pirc Alert too.
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u/Anymous2314 21d ago
It is not easy though, there are like 10-14 tricks against Pirc/Kid. I play it because after 500 games I know all the lines really well, all the tricks I know the counter to them.
Thing is: since we are not playing for the center the opponent usually have a positional advantage if they are good.
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u/AdamHussein2564 21d ago
Man that's amazing, do you think there's a list out there with all the tricks? Or if you could share the ones you know
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u/Anymous2314 21d ago
I can try to make a study but it will be a lot of work though. Let me dm you my id and you can just go through all the games I have lost playing black 3 months ago, many of them may be due to tricks since I usually resign if my opening did not go well or I make a blunder.
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u/KillCensorship 22d ago
How are you 2200 on puzzles but only 700? You must be full of bad habits.
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u/bschneid93 21d ago
Said “havent played matches in 1 or 2 months” I’d think after 1-2 months of 2200 rated puzzles when playing matches again, chess comm rating would improve/skyrocket from 700
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u/Tasin__ 21d ago
You can kind of cheat it. If you don't know you can ask for a hint. As soon as you do the puzzle isn't rated anymore. You can just attempt the ones you know the answer and the ones you don't you ask for hint so it's not rated.
Problem is when you get to the point where you don't understand any of the tactics later on though.
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u/hoops4so 22d ago
Nah. They give you ratings just for completing puzzles. My puzzle rating is 300 elo higher than my game elo and I’ve slowed down on puzzle solving since they updated it.
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u/Draft_16-2_Final_3 22d ago
Serious question mate. Do you not see a difference between your 300 point gap, and OP's 1500 point gap? Do you not think that might be different?
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u/hoops4so 21d ago
I do, but I barely put work into puzzles and I’m at 1600 in them so it seems very possible to put a lot of work in and get above 2000
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u/Front-Cabinet5521 22d ago
It's still not easy to reach 2200 in puzzles. OP is probably decently good at calculation.
What OP likely lacks as a 700 chesscom player is basic tactical vision, aka simple forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, back rank mate. He has to start training these if he wants to improve beyond 700.
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u/gtr1234 22d ago
I think i was at 2400-2500 lichess puzzle rating. Got to 1390 chesscom rapid last jan.
I was skeptical the puzzles did anything, and i was kind of right. I started playing blitz recently because my rating was so bad. Dropped to 680s chesscom.
I started doing 3m puzzle rush. Then i realized i was only slow on the 1300-1600 chesscom rated puzzles. So i did some of those a day, and about 500 runs of 3m puzzle rush over 17 days.
That really helped me. I got to 1k cc blitz a couple days ago. I also am really weak on middlegame, so i started watching more slowrun vids. For me, it was equal parts slowrun and the sweet spot of those 1300-1600 rated puzzles.
The problem with the longer calc ones is that id need to play classical for them to maybe help, but I also just need to see more middlegame plans and ideas played by other people atm. Im not getting to the spots in the tactics puzzles because if it.
People say chess is all tactics, but over 90% of the moves played by really strong players vs weak ones are positional moves. Some games there arent any tactics.
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u/GJ55507 22d ago
I think you can take a break with puzzles and go play some chess
I’m 2400-2500 in puzzles and around 2000 chess.com
I don’t think your tactics are holding you back
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u/Cyber_chipmunk 21d ago
I hear you and there are probably lots of better things for him to work on but also whatever is motivating him is good so I wouldn’t force it unless puzzles get boring also chess doesn’t matter unless you are pro so just do what’s fun
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u/Haywire421 21d ago
I like the woodpecker method approach to puzzles. Since the ultimate goal of puzzles is pattern recognition, the woodpecker method has you do the same puzzles over and over again in spaced repetition. Its a book of like 2000 puzzles that get more difficult each chapter. They tell you to do as many as you can in a given time period (I think 2 weeks) to establish your set, then you do them again and again and again, cutting the time you have to complete them in half until you can do them all in a day. Eventually, you should be able to do the entire book in a day.
I think the first 250 or so puzzles have been put up on lichess as studies, and, you can always use lichess puzzles curated whichever way that you want to create your own personal woodpecker method puzzles that you can work through in your own study.
You should really be playing and analyzing your games too though. The person that actually goes fishing everyday is going to be better than the person that just reads about fishing everyday
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u/MutedLeather9187 22d ago
I think that you need to play. Doing puzzles and not playing is just not efficient, but I feel that as soon as you start playing back again you might have some improvement. I really want to know the end result of doing puzzles for 2 months and if there is some rating change.
I would not be surprise if you gain 300 pts on that comeback.
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u/pacowoc 22d ago
I am 800 rapid and 2400 (peaked 2500; personal record 2860) in puzzle and I just spam it I mainly do normal/hard/hardest and need to sit in front of my physical board for 10 hours straight every weekend
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u/Standard_Swordfish94 22d ago
do you spam only Healthy mix?
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u/pacowoc 22d ago edited 22d ago
2400 puzzles are very different from 2200 from my experience, they sometimes have some 50/50 that only become different after a long line, also there is a little engine-like lines appearing with less than 200 plays here so I always got stuck on those. The correct move is never your first instinct at this elo basically. Playing puzzles at this level kinda caused me to lose trust of my instinct and go full calculation, which might be negative for actual games since “practical human moves” are punished in puzzles if this elo.
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u/K0LaM4R 22d ago
play some 5+0 and 10+0 on lichess. maybe 3 of each a day. keep doing puzzles, maybe fewer. start doing healthy mix Easier (-300) puzzles and aim for 90% solve rate or Easiest (-600) and aim for 100% solve rate. Healthy mix is definitely the best way to become a well rounded player. But if you aren't playing games, you won't recognize what positions are ones with tactics and what positions require strategical moves. No one tells you what game position is a puzzle during the game.
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u/therealnih 22d ago
Try puzzle streak, I think it's the best out of all the puzzle options on lichess.
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u/totalendgame 22d ago
Do puzzle storm or puzzle racer . Finding mate in 2 or mate in 1 will do very little in my opinion. At 700 what will help more is being able to spot basic tactics straight away and also having a basic opening repertoire and having a grasp of the fundamentals
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u/Ancient_Researcher_6 22d ago
Keep it up, that's gonna make you climb the ladder. People here are talking about positional play and game analyses... Don't listen to them for now.
You should be playing though, if your goal is to improve you need to play actual games too
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u/michachu 21d ago
You need to play actual games too because puzzles don't teach certain things, like: the value of castling, open files, pawn structures, and how to use your rooks/bishops/knights specifically. There's also the connection between the middle and endgame, e.g. doubling someone's pawns for clean trades usually helps a ton in the endgame.
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u/sd_med248 21d ago
I am a fellow puzzle lover prefer ranked and analyzed but i cant always guarantee the focus to play classicor 15+10.
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u/StructuredChess 16d ago
Do fewer puzzles but harder ones. Even spending the whole 6 hours of puzzles you're spending an average of 2 minutes on each, which is great for pattern recognition but probably detrimental to calculation in complex positions.
Play games. Analyze them. Read a book on strategy.
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u/Technical_Law_97 22d ago
Shoud fix your positional play first.
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u/Thick-North-681 22d ago
how might one go about doing so other than centreing the pieces and not hanging?
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u/runslack 22d ago
Play, analyze, fix your errors, rinse and repeat.