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Seeds and CT-ART

By Steve | December 4, 2006

Dan Heisman has written many times in his Novice Nook column about the Seeds of Tactical Destruction. These are elements of a position whose presence tells you to spend time looking hard for a tactical combination. Conversely, if these factors are all absent, then you shouldn’t spend too much looking for a tactical solution.

Dan’s list of seeds includes:

I’ve been thinking about how I’m doing CT-ART tactics exercises in relation to the seeds. I just completed my fourth pass of all the level 20 problems. When I’m working my way through lots of CT-ART problems, I have a tendency to slip into “guessing” the first move by choosing a plausible-looking forcing move. I try to fight this tendency and make myself work through the lines in my head before making the first move. But I’ve also been thinking about doing some explicit practice that combines the seeds with CT-ART problems.

I just tried this for the first time tonight, and I’ll probably try it at least several times more. Here’s my approach:

  1. Load a CT-ART practice problem and, working from a printout of the seeds list, write down all the seeds that appear in the position. Then solve the problem.
  2. Repeat for 3-4 more problems.
  3. Then solve 20-30 problems the usual way, attempting to solve each problem quickly. But when a problem stumps me, stop and write down the list of seeds.

Note that CT-ART has a lot of mate problems, which led me to add this item to the list of seeds:

Here’s an example from the level 20 practice set:

4n1k1/p2p2bp/2n5/3q3N/6Q1/2P5/P4N1P/KB6/
White to move

Here’s my list of seeds:

The seeds in this case lead pretty directly to the solution: 1.Qxg7+ Nxg7 2.Nf6+ Kf7 3.Nxd5 and White is up a piece.

I did four more of these, and then I tried to solve a set of 20 problems as quickly as I could. Problem 127 stumped me:

2r2rk1/pb3p1p/1pn1p1p1/2pqN3/8/2QP2P1/PP2PPBP/1R3RK1
Black to move

So I stopped and wrote down the seeds:

It took a little longer than with problem 111, but I found: 1… Nd4 [threatens both mate on g2 and Nxe2+] 2.Bxd5 Nxe2+ 3.Kh1 Bxd5+ 4.f3 Nxc3 5.bxc3 and Black has picked up a pawn.

I hope that this kind of drill will help me with my tactical “board vision.”

2 Responses to “Seeds and CT-ART”

  1. RockyRook Says:
    December 5th, 2006 at 2:09 pm

    Steve, great post. I think I’m going to give this a try (listing out the seeds of tactical destruction). I’ve found that sometimes I’m just stumped and lack some ideas.

    After you do 3 or 4 that way, do you find it easier to blow through the next dozen or so tactics? I imagine you start to go through that list in your head more easily too.

    And one last comment … I’m going to give your diagram utility a try … very handy. Is there any way that the diagram could be “flipped” to the perspective of whose move it is? In other words, if it’s white to play, then the white pieces are on the bottom. If it’s black to play, then the black pieces are on the bottom.

    -RockyRook

  2. Steve Says:
    December 5th, 2006 at 5:36 pm

    Rocky, I think that’s right - going through the seeds systematically for a few problems helped me when I went to back to solving many problems quickly. Going through tons of problems over and over again is certainly good for building up tactical recognition facilities. My (untested) theory is that “spicing up” tactical drills with some time spent on different modes of thinking will help make the overall tactics practice even more effective.

    And that’s a good idea about flipping the diagram. I’ll work on it when I get a chance.

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