Is there a big benefit in using Polgars book vs doing 300 mates in one / two on another puzzle platform such as chess.com when appropriate filters are placed.
Thank you for your reply. I also later watched a video where a sensei explained that the book puzzles are curated and of better quality in a sense. I’ll take the recs and get the book. Happy training !!
I assume you would prefer an answer from one of the coaches here, but since I was wondering about the same thing recently, here's my two cents: I have been working on the polgar book for the past few weeks, roughly at puzzle #500 at the moment. In my experience so far, the polgar puzzles feel much more polished than the computer selected ones.
My main argument for the polgar book is that I tend to concentrate & visualize more and longer in the Polgar book than in the online puzzles. Since you have to come up with black's responses on your own and think the various lines all the way through to reach a conclusion, you're forced to approach this much more seriously than you could with the online trainers. If you're disciplined you can do this on chesscom, too, of course. But on chesscom, I tend to run into a low-quality puzzle eventually and it is very annoying to dump a serious 15 minute think into a position where the solution is ultimately disappointing. With the Polgar puzzles, you can rest assured that there will be a satisfying solution and you won't be wasting your time.
I also make sure to write down all the moves up to the mate (incl variations if there any) and solve 10-15 puzzles before checking the solutions .This way I can just mark the ones I got wrong and revisit these later usually without remembering the solution.
But I do think the chesscom puzzles have their place, too! For one it's awesome to drill the simple mates and tactics (finding forks, back rank mates, batteries etc). It's quick, easy, satisfying but also I feel it formats my brain to spot these patterns and try to generate these positions in my games. In the Polgar book, i find you don't really drill these as much. Already the easier ones in the polgar book feel more complex than the easy online puzzles. There are some simple mates, but with the mate in 2's for instance, the first back rank mate I encountered was around #450!
Anyway, long babble, hope this helps a little in actually answering your question :-) Highly recommend the Polgar book in any case!
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Thank you for your reply. I also later watched a video where a sensei explained that the book puzzles are curated and of better quality in a sense. I’ll take the recs and get the book. Happy training !!
Hi Alex,
I assume you would prefer an answer from one of the coaches here, but since I was wondering about the same thing recently, here's my two cents: I have been working on the polgar book for the past few weeks, roughly at puzzle #500 at the moment. In my experience so far, the polgar puzzles feel much more polished than the computer selected ones.
My main argument for the polgar book is that I tend to concentrate & visualize more and longer in the Polgar book than in the online puzzles. Since you have to come up with black's responses on your own and think the various lines all the way through to reach a conclusion, you're forced to approach this much more seriously than you could with the online trainers. If you're disciplined you can do this on chesscom, too, of course. But on chesscom, I tend to run into a low-quality puzzle eventually and it is very annoying to dump a serious 15 minute think into a position where the solution is ultimately disappointing. With the Polgar puzzles, you can rest assured that there will be a satisfying solution and you won't be wasting your time.
I also make sure to write down all the moves up to the mate (incl variations if there any) and solve 10-15 puzzles before checking the solutions .This way I can just mark the ones I got wrong and revisit these later usually without remembering the solution.
But I do think the chesscom puzzles have their place, too! For one it's awesome to drill the simple mates and tactics (finding forks, back rank mates, batteries etc). It's quick, easy, satisfying but also I feel it formats my brain to spot these patterns and try to generate these positions in my games. In the Polgar book, i find you don't really drill these as much. Already the easier ones in the polgar book feel more complex than the easy online puzzles. There are some simple mates, but with the mate in 2's for instance, the first back rank mate I encountered was around #450!
Anyway, long babble, hope this helps a little in actually answering your question :-) Highly recommend the Polgar book in any case!
cheers
bruno