I think I need a new brain (General)

by Parsdeclined , Herts UK, Tuesday, May 03, 2005, 04:08 (7292 days ago) @ Don Lester

? ? I only got 13 points in the HGIYC for this week(Somebody v. Larsen)
? How's
? ? everybody else doing in these tests?
?
? This was my best HGIYC yet. I don't remember the exact score, but it was
? in the 30s somewhere. The previous several weeks I got 27, every time,
? which I thought was kind of spooky.
?
? There are times though, when I see moves that I think are very good, and
? even on reflection and seeing the answer I still think are better, but I
? get no points regardless. There was one where you could easily win a rook
? by losing a bishop that wasn't even mentioned in the text, and the most
? noteable one being where the opponent had a rook and a bishop and with one
? pawn move you could fix your pawn structure and have all your pawns on
? squares untouchable by the bishop, but that got no points either ;)
?
? Then there are times when I see the gist of where he is going and it is a
? multi-part setup, and I say to move the pawn (for example) to prepare, but
? that gets no points because you are supposed to move the minor piece first,
? but then the exact same pawn move gets points on the following turn. Kind
? of funny.
?
? Quirks aside though, I still find them fun to do and almost always do them
? when they come out on Mondays.

I find them very challenging. I'm getting reasonable scores but sometimes I don't seem to miss the plot completely. I find it helps to have a board setup to look at rather than just the screen. Don't know why but it seems a little easier that way. How do you guys do them?