Fusilli: I was just listening to him being interviewed at the Perpetual Chess Podcast (https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/). Someone asked him why some players that are great at solving puzzles while training perform poorly in tournament play.His answer was "nerves."
Maybe, but isn't a more likely culprit that tactical puzzles do not reflect real OTB situations? When playing for real, you don't know if you are facing a "white to sac and win" problem or a mirage position.
If in real tournament play you are going to assume that every complex position has a winning tactical shot, you'll run out of time.
And frankly, too much tactical puzzle solving may make you prone to make reckless moves, since the puzzles are virtually never about finding the best defense. We tend to feel good about solving a puzzle even when we overlook a defensive move because in "play and win" puzzles the overlooked moves do not work (if we got the starting sequence right). In other words, say that the winning move is 1.Bxh6 followed by then 1...gxh6 2.Qh5 Kh7 3.Ra3 and white wins. And when deciding to play 1.Bxh6 we overlook the defensive move 3... Bc7-d6 followed by 4...Bf8. But it turns out that the bishop defense doesn't work. So, in a real game, we can play 1.Bxh6 and still win even if we discover the bishop defense possibility after making the sac. If we think we "solved" the puzzle... no, we didn't. If we did not see all possible defenses, we didn't. Because, in the real world, if 3...Bd6 does work, we are a piece down and lost.
"Can you play c5 without fearing the sac Bxh6?", for example, would be a nice puzzle to run into now and then.
The most useful puzzles for the tournament player should reflect real tournament play. They should never be labeled anything else than "white/black to play" and your job should be to find the best move, whether it's a tactical shot, a necessary defensive move against a hard-to-see threat, the best plan, setting up a favorable endgame, or whatever.
That's why Guess the Move (also called solitaire chess) is so much better than puzzles and Gregory Kaidanov 's top recommendation.
Kibitzing
