fredthebear: Nope. I study puzzles mostly from books, mostly from the same trusted books (or authors), to cut down on screen time. The font on these pages is dinky. I see plenty of different tactics and possible tactics just going through GM games on here, but I still use books as a reliable training tool, easier on the eyes. Viktor Korchnoi spent 30 minutes per day solving puzzles; he was a positional player with a tremendously long career. I don't put a time on it each day. On a weekend without a chess tournament, I might spend three hours solving tactics - go through an entire puzzle book. In my younger single days, I'd go out to local library or a mostly empty fast-food restaurant and hang out in a booth solving Chernev, P.H. Clarke, du Mont, Euwe, Evans, Furst, Hanauer, Keene, Littlewood, Mednis, Reinfeld, Znosko-Borovsky, etc. and not feel as lonely or isolated. Most were inexpensive books from Dover publishers that I could afford. Then I ran into Mr. Bob Long/Chessco publisher at chess tournaments and bought dozens upon dozens used from him.
Frankly, I studied too many tactics and combinations when I should have been reading through tournament books and Best Games collections much sooner and more frequently. Yes, learn all the fundamentals really well but it is the study of annotated grandmaster games move-by-move (game experience/thought process of strong players) that boosts one's own performance. Go over complete games with explanations, including games that one has seen before for reinforcement.
Most of the training books over the years are books that I would recommend to students. If I wouldn't recommend it, I usually don't keep it in my personal rotation -- except expensive books and older descriptive notation books, which I try not to recommend but still use myself. (I have so many chess books that I want to study/re-read that there's not much point in keeping a book that I don't plan to read, although a few are still kept because others discuss them so much.) Yes, I do look at the puzzle of the day on the home page, but that's only one puzzle.
I no longer spend time trying to solve fresh, challenging mate-in-ten positions unless it's in a chess magazine. That sort of challenge might take me five minutes, twenty-five minutes, ninety minutes, etc. My time is better spent solving a bunch of puzzles quickly from my reliable past books. It's my version of the woodpecker method -- zoom through old standbys again and again. Much of chess is pattern recognition. The constant variety of easier puzzles keeps one sharp (as many as ten puzzles per minute), not the difficulty of a few hard puzzles. Most hard puzzles breakdown to easier tactics anyway. I don't ever want to miss a simple win, or give away a back ranker. If I'm super sound move after move (don't mess up), I will be difficult to beat. Let the other guy give the game away to me. That goes out the window if I'm in the mood for an aggressive gambit.
I do like Mr. Bill Harvey's online puzzles on CGs -- a nice variety. He gets straight to the point.
Of course, themed collections such as double bishop sacrifices or underpromotions appeal to me as well.
Kibitzing
sac: 21.Bxe5+
