Applying Dan Heisman's Guide to using Chess Tactics for Students

For info - have just noticed one small anomaly...

When running with OppositeSide=1 & Flipped=1 (for training Black Defences, plus I'm setting up my own puzzles like that - so see the blundering move that the puzzle is responding to) the very first move of the first puzzle in a set, whether running randomised or not, has the wrong "[White/Black] to Move" under the board. After that all is as it should be.

Thanks again for great app :-)

Hi @OldN1ck,
Thanks for letting me know. I'll figure out what's going on and update when ready.

What I was always wondering about this method: Isn't it that after repeating puzzles for many times you eventually remember the right moves rather then find them?

Hi @Jenium,
I think that is entire point. Basically to be able to recognise these simple patterns on sight without thinking. Having gone through the entire Bain's set nearly 40 times by now, I don't need to spend more than a moment on any given puzzle there. Due to this, I've noticed that I spot potential tactics in my games a lot more often and a lot quicker. The other thing I've noticed is that I learn other things about the position including an understanding of the opponent's moves as well as my own.

I think this approach is similar to learning the alphabet. You simply have to drill letters repeatedly until you know them and then you can start applying them elsewhere. I think trying to learn an alphabet by studying full words would be a lot harder, but you do you.

This was simply my experience with this method. It worked for me and I'm applying it to other books I'm working through and seeing similar results.

Hi @OldN1ck,
I've fixed the issue and the new version is now live. Thanks for finding the bug.

@Citric0740 I just found your app on github, and it is brilliant! Thank you for making something which is effective, and simple to run locally. I don't know if I am missing something, but is there a way to save your progress so that when you close the browser, and reopen it you can start where you left off?

Hi @Tuldenus,
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad to hear that you are finding it useful.

Data storage (progress, PGNs, etc) is not in the app yet but it is the next major feature I'm looking at implementing.

@Citric0740 That would be fantastic. Even the ability to choose which puzzle (game number) in the PGN to start from, would enable the user to 'save' their progress through notes on paper or in a spreadsheet, and resume at the correct puzzle.

That is really awesome, I will try that too! Great work@Citric0740

Hi @Tuldenus,
Being able to pick a starting point is useful as long as you are going through the set sequentially. This won't work if you are using the randomise feature since the app randomises the set every time and you would likely see the same puzzle again.

At least for now, the way I handled dealing with larger sets was to break them apart into smaller ones that could be completed in one go. That way I could take a break and come back to it later.

For example, the second book I did this with has 740 puzzles spread over 21 chapters. My current average speed on this set 10 seconds/puzzle which means that a full set would take more than 2 hours in one sitting. So I just kept it at the chapter level which resulted in 20-80 puzzles per set. Any given set then only takes a few minutes to go through but I can work the entire set as time allowed.

This won't be necessary once the data storage feature is implemented but it is going to be a bit before that is ready. I'm still in the design and planning phase of that one.

That's what I did too. I broke the PGN into sections that were more bite sized and could be done within 30 minutes.

If anyone's looking for a way to take clips from chess tactics eBooks/PDFs and turn into FENs for use with this app... I've found that a free account for https://chessify.me/analysis is working really well - no errors so far, even for some grainy pics where I'm struggling to tell the difference between the White & Black Queens etc.

Hello, and thx to Citric0740 for sharing your app.

I have a problem when i want to import a pgn. Sadly i am not good with programming computers so I dont know how to fix this problem.

The message is like this :

" There is an issue with PGN file. Error message is as follows:

SyntaxError: Expected "[", end of input, or whitespace but "1" found. "

This is what my PGN looks like :

[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r3k2r/ppp2ppp/8/8/4q3/8/PPP2PPP/R2QR1K1 b kq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "2"]
1... O-O (1... Qe6 2. Rxe6+ fxe6 3. Qh5+ Kd7 4. Rd1+ Kc8 5. Qg4 $18) 2. Rxe4 *
[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r3k2r/ppp2ppp/8/8/4q3/8/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 w kq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]
1. Re1 Qxe1+ (1... O-O 2. Rxe4) 2. Qxe1+ *
[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "8/5bp1/5k2/8/4R3/8/7P/7K b - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]
1... Bd5 2. Kg1 (2. h3 Bxe4+) 2... Bxe4 *
[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r1b1kbnr/ppp2ppp/2qp4/4n3/4P3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]
1. Bb5 Qxb5 (1... Bd7 2. Bxc6) 2. Nxb5 *

Can anyone help what is wrong ?

@EverTr1ed below is a PGN I just generated. It looks basically the same as yours... there's only one moveset though. But you can see there's an empty line between the [PlyCount] and the beginning of the moveset. This empty line probably is part of the specification, ... it's possible it could have been stripped from your PGN. So something you could try is just adding back the empty line.

If that doesn't work - I'm not sure why there are multiple movesets / PGNs in your file but you could try just splitting them up into separate files.

[Event "RUS Cup final"]
[Site "Belgorod"]
[Date "2010.11.08"]
[Round "1.2"]
[White "Gutov, Andrey"]
[Black "Timofeev, Artyom"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "D20"]
[WhiteElo "2439"]
[BlackElo "2681"]
[PlyCount "96"]
[GameId "284827596535"]
[EventDate "2010.11.07"]
[EventType "k.o."]
[EventRounds "5"]
[EventCountry "RUS"]
[SourceTitle "CBM 139"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "2010.11.18"]
[SourceVersion "1"]
[SourceVersionDate "2010.11.18"]
[SourceQuality "1"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nc6 4. Be3 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. d5 Na5 7. Bxc4 Nxc4 8. Qa4+ c6 9. Qxc4 cxd5 10. exd5 Bd6 11. Nf3 O-O 12. O-O h6 13. Nb5 e4 14. Nxd6 exf3 15. Bc5 Nd7 16. Rfe1 Qg5 17. g3 Nxc5 18. Qxc5 Qh5 19. h4 b6 20. Qd4 Qg4 21. Qf4 Qxf4 22. gxf4 Rd8 23. Nb5 Bb7 24. Rad1 Rd7 25. Re3 Bxd5 26. Nc7 Rxc7 27. Rxd5 Rc2 28. Rb5 Rd8 29. Rxf3 Rdd2 30. Re5 Rxb2 31. Re8+ Kh7 32. Re7 Kg6 33. Rxa7 Rxa2 34. Rb7 Rab2 35. Rg3+ Kf6 36. Rc3 Rxf2 37. Rc6+ Kf5 38. Rxf7+ Ke4 39. Rxb6 Rg2+ 40. Kh1 Rh2+ 41. Kg1 Rbg2+ 42. Kf1 Rf2+ 43. Kg1 Rfg2+ 44. Kf1 g6 45. Rff6 Rf2+ 46. Kg1 Rhg2+ 47. Kh1 Rh2+ 48. Kg1 Rhg2+ 1/2-1/2

Hi @EverTr1ed,

It looks like you need to add a space between the tags and the move order. I added them to your file and it now works and tests you on the four positions. Copy/Paste the pgn below to a file and include the spaces.

[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r3k2r/ppp2ppp/8/8/4q3/8/PPP2PPP/R2QR1K1 b kq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "2"]

1... O-O (1... Qe6 2. Rxe6+ fxe6 3. Qh5+ Kd7 4. Rd1+ Kc8 5. Qg4 $18) 2. Rxe4 *

[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r3k2r/ppp2ppp/8/8/4q3/8/PPP2PPP/R2Q1RK1 w kq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]

1. Re1 Qxe1+ (1... O-O 2. Rxe4) 2. Qxe1+ *

[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "8/5bp1/5k2/8/4R3/8/7P/7K b - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]

1... Bd5 2. Kg1 (2. h3 Bxe4+) 2... Bxe4 *

[Event "Pins"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "r1b1kbnr/ppp2ppp/2qp4/4n3/4P3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "3"]

1. Bb5 Qxb5 (1... Bd7 2. Bxc6) 2. Nxb5 *

Thx Citric0740.

Now it works !!! Great

I will use Chess Tactics for Students in the Woodpacker Method as well. For seeing my learing i want to ask if you would share your excel sheet as well would be very nice for me. Otherwise its a litte hard to track my progress.

Hi @EverTr1ed,

I'm not going to share the Excel file since I'm using it to prototype what visualisations and data I need to eventually add into the tool directly and it constantly undergoes changes/tweaks. It isn't ready to be shared.

Instead, I can tell you what you need to do to make one yourself. You can also do the exact same in Google Sheets if you are more used to that.

In either Excel or Google Sheets, simply start a list with the following column names:

• Name
• Round
• Number of errors
• Error Rate
• Elapsed time
• Average time/puzzle

The name column is the name of the set. For example, if you are doing a set on Pins, you could label it Pins. You could also use the PGN name instead if you want, it doesn't matter as long as you use the same name every time you do that particular set.

Round is a count of the times you have gone through the set. So when you complete the set the first time, you would mark it as 1. When you do the set again, you would mark it as 2, and so on.

The last four columns you just copy/paste the information from the results popup when you finish a set into the relevant column on the sheet.

Each time you do a set, you add a new row and put the information in. Don't change existing rows. This is what will allow you to see progress over time. Using the Pins example, you would expect to have two complete rows once you have done it twice, like this:

And that is it. You can then make a pivot table and chart it out however you'd like. Google can direct you to tutorials on how to make pivot tables and charts if you need it.

.

Hi @Citric0740,

Great new features in v1.8.01, many thanks for continuing to develop this... I'm using it regularly :-)

However I have noticed that little bug > where if you're using the 'Play opposite side' option, then the first position has the opposite 'colour to move' under the board > has crept back in again.

Hi @OldN1ck,

That pesky bug again No worries, I've fixed the issue and pushed an update. You should now see 1.8.2.

Thanks for your support!