Originally posted by Knight Squareit's not even remotely enough to know what they are, you have to burn them into your brain. and it takes thousands and thousands of solved puzzles to do that. it's recommended that a chess player should make a habit out of solving tactical puzzles every day.
tactics, meaning forks, pins etc. Are studied by me. Guess i need to study them more. And there some i don't understand like xray?
the thing is, you're rewiring your brain to recognize patterns immediately. and that takes a lot of repetition. conscious prosesses are just way too slow. - a master doesn't calculate the tactics he sees, he recognizes them. that only takes a fraction of a second, and it's automatic. that's how they can pull off massive simuls with incredible winning percentages, even if they look for a single position only for a couple of seconds.
if you go check the titled players on chess tactics server, you'll see just that. -they solve in 1-5 seconds the same problems we calculate for ages, if we even manage to spot the elements from the position.
that said, there are two separate areas here you should be aware of (and train): combinative vision (spotting the tactics) and calculation (finding the correct move order). tactics with no time to think will train the former, slow tactics the latter area. both are crucial for becoming a good player.