March advanced tactical probs for Grandmasters only! (Problems)

by juggernaut, Thursday, April 13, 2006, 00:47 (7187 days ago) @ Tony Kosten

? This thread is really stretching across my screen!
? We are doing the April tactics at the moment, and we had an idea for the
? Beginner's stuff: at the moment we are often splitting one combination
? into several puzzles, so if the combo lasts 5 moves there might be 3
? puzzles at different key points. But what if we reverse the order of these
? puzzles so that we start with the end and work back to the beginning -
? would this be more pedagogical?

An intersting idea. As a student who studies the advanced section, (sigh, I really should take advantage of the intermediate and beginners section too, you can always learn something new at any level!)I think it might have some relevance. The idea being if you saw the forced mate in four from 'mate minus 4 moves'; Would you have seen it from say 'mate minus six moves'? In the advanced section, these latest puzzles are testing those limits. The branches of replies are much more since replies are more abundant/plausible. No immediately forcing check , check, mate varieties of combinations but some inbetween move that is the key. Has any teacher/master taught any student in this reverse order? Well I guess it's not so reversed since the solutions/moves are based on the positive factors of the position in question at that moment for the student and the student should be going in that direction since the positives influences tell him so. Does this make sense? I think it does. I think it might be harmful for reverse order. The first moves in the right order highlight the special features of the position to make the 'mate in four' possible a few moves later. The inital postion says , 'You have a good position, use it to get an even better one.' There, after my internal ramblings, I think combination reversal is a bad idea.