Pattern Recognition Roundup Week of 3/30
Welcome back to your main spot on “The Stack” for instant-pattern-recognition-level tactics.
Hopefully, you are all getting some value from this. Solving four of these won’t make you much better, but if you use this to inspire yourself to solve hundreds more, then you’re getting somewhere.
First, it’s fun to solve and get almost everything correct. It feels good, and there’s a use when you’re trying to embed these in your psyche.
Also, please note that I like to use some of Martin’s puzzles for this. If you want to get a big jump on your peers, you can buy that book here: Tactics Ladder - Beginner II: 800 Rated
Other puzzles here are from The Manual of Chess Combinations 1a
OK, first, let’s go over last week’s answers.
1…Bg6 picks up the queen.
1.Kh1 and now Black has nothing better than to stalemate White with 1…Qxf2=
1.Qe7# wins on the spot.
Yes, this is so simple it might seem silly. However, keep in mind that the object here is not to solve this, which all of you should be able to do, but to get this so deeply ingrained into System 1 thinking that you aren’t solving it as much as seeing it. Patterns such as this simply need to be as deeply ingrained as one can make them.
1.Qb4# is the answer, but it’s about “seeing” the answer rather than “thinking” the answer.
OK, now on to some new patterns. Since it’s almost the end of Women’s History Month, let’s do some from Jen’s book, which you can buy here: Play Like a Girl!
We’ll circle back to these next week.
Til next time,
Chris Wainscott