Basic Tactical Drills

[Dan O'Dowd]

I discovered last night in a league game that I was calculating poorly by my standards despite getting the more arcane puzzles on ChessTempo correct. With that in mind, I want to turn into a Conservative circa 1992, and go Back to basics on my tactical skills. The aim is to do drills that are so simple that a beginner would start with them, and build up, and build up, doing things blindfold, and putting certain skills/knowledge in the core of my very strong memory, so that calculation in future won't be as inconsistent as it is now, where at my peak I can play tactically like a 2000.

While this may not be possible in full, does anyone know of any sites where I can do just this? I'm thinking of calculation exercises that aren't just tactics puzzles, things like visualisation drills, etc.

While on the subject, those stronger than me (143 ECF, ~1750 elo) - do you find that if you do tactics for x minutes every day, you begin to fatigue after a while, and if so; do you find it beneficial to stop there or to carry on trying to break through the misvisions you have? I really need to know whether I should be absolutive in my tactical study plans when I start to do the same amount as I do positional, or to trust my intuition and say that so long as I do tactics of some form every day, I'll be ok.

[Niall Doran]

I don't know what membership you have at Chesstempo, but I've shelled out for silver membership. This allows you to hand-pick your problems. For example, knight forks rated between 1500 and 1800, if you like. What I find beneficial is to do a pile of 1100-1200 problems, then move onto 1400-1500 problems, then onto rated problems. I think the lower-rated problems are important for pattern recognition, and the higher ones for calculation.
Regarding tiredness, I tend to take a break or stop, as trying to break on through to the other side generally results in me not having the patience to calculate properly, playing the first plausible-looking move and losing points.