De La Maza Training Update

As visitors and members of this Blog may know, I am currently in engaging in a tactics regime encouraged by Michael De La Maza.

See a previous post for more information on the 7 Circles approach ...

I am encouraged by my results, but not entirely convinced. As can be seen from the table below, the time spent solving my 100 sample problems has decreased steadily for each circle attempted. However, I feel the main reason for the considerably faster solving times is due simply to memory! After all, you are solving the same problems again and again, therefore you tend to remember the solution rather than having to re-solve them each time.

All very well but what if you leave the training and revisit it after a 2 month break?  As you can see from the table below (Problems 101 - 200), there is a break between Circle 6 - 28/03/2012 and Circle 7 - 20/05/2012 of almost 2 months.  Unfortunately my time went back up to 40mins, BUT the good news is that it is still 11mins quicker than Circle 1 when I first started Batch # 2.  What is more, I got all the solutions correct, so another plus here!

Overall, for me the training cannot be a bad thing ... After all, pattern recognition is essential for the chess tactician, and surely the more frequently you see the same chess problem / position before you, then the more chance you have of seeing it's underlying pattern and method of solution?  As usual, comments welcome.