This is a chronic problem for me (taking 30 seconds or even a couple of minutes sometimes to notice obvious tactics) that I would like to find a way to remedy.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions?

<Peligroso Patzer> A couple of random thoughts that may or may not help. I tend to look for patterns that might suggest particular combinations.

For example, knights alternate between white and black squares on each move. This means that they can only attack squares of a different colour from the one that they are on. So a knight on a white square can only attack black squares on its first move, white squares on its second, and so on.

This then means that forkable pieces must be standing on the same colour squares as each other. In the puzzle position ...

click for larger view

... the white knight and black queen are both on black squares. With a couple of exceptions, this ought to mean that the white knight should be able to attack the black queen in one move. In fact, there are two ways to do this - via e2 and e6.

This also suggests the next theme. As the black queen is on a black square, if we can lure the black king to another black square, there is a good chance that a fork will be on. If we can get the black king to f8 and g7, the queen fork will be "on" via e6.

The two exceptions are when the two targets are two far away or separated by one square along the diagonal, as in this example ...

click for larger view

There is no square where the white knight can fork black king and rook, even though they are both standing on the same colour squares.

The other pattern that might help is when your opponent's king and queen are on the same file and we have rooks on the board. Then we ought to be on guard for pins and skewers. Admittedly, skewers coming back down the board are harder to spot than those going away from you!

More interesting is an analysis of where Black went wrong. Clearly with 30... Rdxd5?? Black calculated 31.exd5 Re1+ 32.Rxe1 Qxf4 winning the Queen. However, it is very reasonable to assume he made a common error in chess calculation: He stopped one move too short. How natural to think, "I win the Queen so White must resign." Why didn't he see 33.Re8+ ? Simply because he didn't even look for it. He stopped all his calculations when he saw he was winning White's Queen. This is a great example of why you ALWAYS want to try to calculate just one more move than you think you should. Such a thinking habit prevents errors like Black made in this game.

<Peligroso Patzer> - I also learned the rules as a child and returned to the game much later. :)

For you, and everybody else reading this page, with similar difficulties - I'd like to add another vote to <johnlspouge>'s recommendation of the Emrald Chess Tactics Server(http://chess.emrald.net/). Emrald simply can't be recommended enough - it is invaluable. It's a completely free site. You can play (practice) there as a guest, but they recommend registering, so that their program can keep track of your progress, in order to assign you puzzles best suited to your current level. I strongly second that recommendation. :) Register and always play logged in! It will make a huge difference in the site's ability to help you improve.

A few of the people I've recommended Emrald to, had dismissed it with remarks along the lines of "Oh, it's a blitz training site. I don't play blitz, so that obsession of theirs with speed is just silly to me."

I want to address that reaction ab initio, because it's absolutely wrong - and it's also one that many people who try the site out for only a short time are likely to have, if only because players who are used to being rated, say, 2000 and above, at corr. chess sites, are going to be annoyed and put on the defensive about finding themselves rated as low as 1200-1300 at Emrald, and will wish to dismiss the "insulting" site. ;)

1. Emrald (not Em<e>rald) doesn't have a motto AFAIK.

2. It's a German based site; the sentence you posted is Hungarian.

3. Its translation is: Trouble rarely comes singly.

Dear <Anni K.>,

Ups I was AFK.
If you would have had a closer look at the main domain "emrald.net" in advance, you should have noticed that it is basically a <Risk Consulting Company> - funny isn't it?

Hogyan mondjam magyarul <did my sources fool me> ?

I reckoned this Hungarian (believe it or not I was well aware of this fact) proverb can also be 'translated' as:

"A problem seldom comes alone" ?

I used the rare German given name 'Emerald' instead of 'Emrald' ... my deepest apologies for that, on purpose! Why? Simple, I am German!

Hmm ... explaining a joke is a boring thing, but I don't want you to have nightmares. Olala, <or is this supposed to be some kind of threat?> Well (now) comes my time asking if you were kidding big time??

That scared me . . . not scintillatingly witty either.

<myschkin> I wasn't kidding, I was annoyed. I don't exactly keep it secret that I speak Hungarian, but I don't really solicit being addressed in Hungarian either, particularly at a US based, international site - for the most part (excepting brief incidents of getting carried away chatting with fellow fans of some player during a live game relay, for example), I consider speaking minority languages at an international site "exclusive" and rather rude behavior toward our hosts and fellow site members. Not to mention that posting in a language the site administration can't understand has a disreputable history of being used to get away with saying things the site rules forbid. So when somebody accosts me out of the blue with a Hungarian reference to trouble... I'm not going to be just thrilled, ok? :p

I've checked out the main Emrald domain sometime around when I registered, a couple of years ago - it was of no interest, so I forgot about it. The chess site hosted by Emrald is actually called "Chess Tactics Server" only, but that's such a general name that when you want to discuss it with other chess players, it's much easier to refer to it as Emrald if you want to be sure you're both talking about the same site.

Ok, I now understood that you got fed up . The reasons you give are quite convincing. My lesson: never rely on one soure only - jup, the old internet problem. Where our opinions fundamentally differ is the handling of an international board, but we don't have to stretch this out here on this player's page. Maybe sometime we find a 'right' place/time, no need to hurry. The first paragraph of your post contained a couple of points I am courious about. Back to the stale proverb post, let us put it this way was a misunderstanding, bad joke and faulty. My first reply was in a way rude, thin-skinned and overall not one of my brightest around here. Nevertheless I wrote it and that's the way I am. <Annie> sorry for this hullabaloo and hope this last lines helped to clarify this.

No harm done shalom

You're welcome to bring any other questions or discussions to my chessforum.

The solution is easy: black is forced into a fork or skewer.

33♖e8+ ♔g7 34 ♘e6+ a fork