Just Not “Seeing It”

I am 63 years old and I have been trying to learn chess for about 2 years. I watch YouTube videos, do lessons and puzzles, and I play games against the computer. I practice every day but I’m just not “seeing it.” For example, when I do puzzles and I check my stats, puzzles where the goal is to solve in 25 seconds, are taking me 3 and 4 minutes to figure out. I have alway had problems with spatial awareness and I was hoping that chess might help me with that, but it’s getting really frustrating. I guess waiting until I’m almost 65 to learn doesn’t help, but I really like the game, and I’m kinda hooked on it now. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Playing games gives you more experience, maybe play daily games so you have time to think and with this practice you will eventually “see it.” I find that puzzles are more difficult than actual games because there is no build up to the position like in a real game.

@TanksDad0626 Have you tried the lessons on this site? They have helped me tremendously. You can binge watch them but I found it better to make it though one lesson and then work on the bots for a bit with the skills you just learned. Then move on to the next lesson. Anything by the chess.com Team is a good place to start. 
Happy New Year!

-M

Happy New Year TanksDad0626! I understand your problem. My hopefully helpful advice is to train "seeing a mate or a combination" systematically by beginning with simple pawn endgames and finishing with complicated middlegame tasks. It takes time, therefore I suggest to increase the level in small steps every week. Maybe buying a book with a lot of easy and more difficult tasks is appropiate for you, because there is no time control in books. Time control could make "nervous" and potentially create a "brain blockade", therefore to get the right solution is important at first. Later on a time control maybe introduced. I hope that helps you.

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

If I may offer some encouragement. The thing with puzzles is that as you get better, and your puzzle rating goes up. The puzzles you get then have a higher degree of difficultly. This means that you are getting more difficult puzzles which shows improvement. Also the target time does not factor in how many possible alternatives that a human may come up with, and have to calculate out (which takes time). If you see your puzzle rating going up that means a couple of things. 1. is that you are getting better at seeing tactics. 2. Is that you are getting better a calculation. This is regardless of whether you go way over the target time or not.

Hope this helps.

This is what I did. I slowly worked up from ~500 to ~800 with this.

My advice, never resign, take your time on every move until you're sure. I don't find the puzzles to be useful in any tactical way at all; most often, they're plain old specific lines consisting of "finding" the safety squares to get to the targets. Half the time, there's 18 other GOOD options available to play perfectly fine, no overextensions or unnecessarily rigorous calculations JUST to take a PAWN-- but it wants you to go the scenic route, because it's specifically calculated for safety-- but human opponents are not. The wrong odd move could then kaput your advance to target after 3 wasted moves of pressure checks and kicks, just for them to forget to capture this instead of moving THERE, and now your in high water with slim chances of escape, much less back up. 
Take puzzles as what they are, not an *actual* representation of what you should be focusing on as far as what to "look for". Nothing meant as a drag against the site either, they really are fun and keep your mental calculator running on cruise control; and that's dangerous if you start thinking "I see it, I'm going for it". As soon as you make a move to go for it, a real opponent will have actual options to play unlike a puzzle.

I'd recommend you playing people instead of computers, and Daily games where you will have enough time to "see" a lot going on. You could play rapid games also, it doesn't matter if you get lower rating.

That's good. It's the same with me and I guess with the majority of players. "Target time" doesn't matter (it's mostly random nonsense anyway), all that matters is to calculate well and to solve the puzzle.

Suggestion: play against humans as well. After all, why not?

I'm 68 and rated 2351 on chess.com.

You might find it easier to play Daily time control. At 3 days per move, you have all the time you need to examine the position, notice the threats and other important features, and come up with a decent move.

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It does take time, and it can be infuriating and discouraging at times. Try playing the lower rated "bots" - there is no time limit, so you can take as long thinking as you need. If you play longer time controls against people then try to play against similar rated people. Keep in mind that, while YouTube videos are useful, many make false promises of a quick increasing in rating. Try to enjoy chess for the fun of it.

Just relax and play. Stop worrying about how fast you solve puzzles.

You are still too young seeing it.

At 75 you will definitely see it.

Wisdom comes with age.

Dude, this is what you returned for? To post complete nonsense into every topic?

Right behind you at 59... I've played Chess all my life and in my youth reached a USCF rating into the 1800s

A) Stop comparing yourself to people in their teens and early 20s (i.e. the majority of people on this site)

B) As we get older, our brains slow, it's a fact of life... everything from comprehension, to physical reactions. That doesn't mean we can't see all the pieces of the Chess board (i.e. play the game with skill) .. it means where it would take 10 seconds to analyze a position in your 20s now it take triple that time.

I wanted to run with the youth... play Blitz... Nope. Past 9pm (after a day on the job... ) I suck at Blitz. I can come on in the morning and play ok.. I do this flip flop... loose 50 elo points... come on in the morning regain them. (never really get past the 1400 elo mark on Chess.com in Blitz)

Get away from blitz... that's a young man's game!

Rapid and longer... are way different animals. I mostly play over at Lichess (for reasons that chess.com doesn't like people to cite) and hang with 1900s I know the ratings are different, about a 200-300 difference.. still I think when you get above a certain elo at Lichess that levels out.

Point being.. it's hard to compete with a 16 year old playing blitz after I've come home from running a 250K sqft DC with 20 plus directs that ships internationally and domestically... dealing with budgets etc... you name it. Then add my age into the equation.

realistically... not going to compete with the youth

Slow down... play your age. Why didn't Kasparov or Karpov play in the World Championship of Bltz and Rapid ..... because they would get crushed! they don't think that fast anymore . I believe Kasparov's last real attempt to compete at rapid was in 2021 at the GCT Croatia Rapid & Blitz . he got crushed... I don't think he won a game. Go back 20yrs.... and he's the one who's doing the crushing!

Heck.... look what happened to Nakamura and Carlsen ... kind of looks like age is catching up with them...

GM Volodar Murzin won the 2024 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship with an undefeated 10/13 score. At 18 years old... Nuff said.

Hopefully my words will give you some self esteem and motivation.

Focus on mastering a few key concepts rather than overwhelming yourself with too much information at once.

https://www.chess.com/tournaments/all

Bookmark the Daily Tournaments page and register with several at a time so you start 20-30 new games at roughly the same time. This creates a constant flow of new games to work on openings and I recommend time limits of at least three days to make them easily manageable and allow for chess free days which you don't get with 24 hour a move games. You can join unlimited tournaments of 3-14 days a move and have a lot of current games which is like doing puzzles every day but with your own games.

The only downside to the tournaments is sometimes they take a while to start and by that point some of the entrants are no longer active. It just means you will get a lot of timeouts but are left with opponents who are playing to win which is the perfect training ground and you're only limited by the amount of time you can spend each day choosing your moves.