Tactics Frenzy is one of the seven magic mini-games featured in the brand-new Magnus Chess Academy app. Tactics Frenzy may be known to you as a standalone app that still exists to this day. However, its graphics, sounds, and gameplay received an overhaul as part of becoming included in Magnus Chess Academy.

Tactics Frenzy helps improve your combinational vision and boost your calculation skills by taking on a series of chess puzzles in timed mode.

As of now, there are seven unique categories in the Tactics Frenzy mini-game:

The "mate in one", "mate in two", and "mate in three" modes offer you a chance to solve the good old "mate in X" puzzles that you could stumble upon in newspapers. 

"Easy", "medium", and "hard" levels involve finding tactical sequences based on all sorts of tactical motifs, such as pins, forks, skewers, discovered attacks, X-rays, and many more. 

"Joker" is a mode for people who enjoy the element of luck that is normally not involved in chess much. In this category, you may be treated to random puzzles of any difficulty, from easy to hard. 

Speaking of difficulty, the "mate in one" and "easy" modes are accessible and enjoyable for people who are relatively new to chess. "Mate in two", "mate in three", and "medium" are more challenging and aimed at club and tournament players. "Joker" and "hard" modes are best suited for titled players and puzzle-solving virtuosos. Even top Grandmasters will be struggling with some of the tasks.  

There are two main ways you can improve your high scores in Tactics Frenzy. First of all, try to solve as many puzzles as you can within the allocated timeframe. Secondly, be on fire and aim for a long streak of correctly solved puzzles. 

Good luck and have fun playing Tactics Frenzy!

Reviews of other Magnus Chess Academy mini-games:

Tactical proficiency is what makes or breaks a chess game. Become a tactical beast by doing Tactics Frenzy runs! 

I often get questions from people who have just retired, downshifted, or reconsidered their priorities and now have more free time on their hands than before. They recall that they used to have this fantastic hobby and wonder what they should do to make a smooth comeback to chess.

In 2004, I basically quit chess only to return to the game after meeting WGM Natalia Pogonina in 2008. The 5-year gap between tournaments felt like ages. I was extremely rusty and kept falling into time trouble every game, blundering pieces left and right. The result was rather harsh: I lost 36 rating points in the first event after the comeback in March 2009.

To be honest, the outcome wasn’t astonishing. I didn’t prepare for the tournament in any way and later had to make adjustments on the go, eventually leading to much better results. 

After a second hiatus from 2015 to 2021, I decided to make yet another comeback. In fact, I am still in the transition process, so it’s reasonably easy for me to tell what the most relevant aspects are. 

Tip #1. Assess your resources. How much time per week and what budget can you allocate for chess? If you genuinely want to improve, you will probably have to invest in chess accessories, software, trips, coaching, and so on. 

Set a chess goal for yourself and evaluate whether you have everything you need to reach it. When in doubt, consult your chess pals or coach (see tip #4 for more details). If your goal is too far away and thus demotivating, break down the journey into small steps. For instance, if you aim for a title or a certain rating, you can keep track of every 100 points gained along the way and award yourself for every step made. 1500-1600-1700-1800-1900-2000 is a smoother path than 1500-2000, when you will be waking up each day and feeling stressed about your progress not being substantial enough. 

Tip #2. Now that you know your goal, develop a training schedule. It is preferable to consistently dedicate some time to chess every day, even if you can’t spare much. Having the right routines and religiously following them is crucial for becoming a strong player or generally succeeding in any field.  

Magnus Trainer is the perfect one-stop solution in this sense since the lessons and game levels there are fun, interactive, and reasonably short so that you can complete them in a single session. 

Tip #3. Don’t walk alone. Unless you are a fanatic whose intrinsic motivation to succeed at chess is otherworldly, you could use some support from your relatives and friends. It is helpful to inform your inner circle about your decision to pursue chess more seriously so that there are fewer potential misunderstandings. Adults have many commitments, so you must sacrifice something to free up the space for chess! Hopefully, watching TV series will go down the drain, not your family life. Just kidding. It’s up to you to decide, of course! 

Tip #4. Catch up. Since your information about the chess world has probably become outdated, it is recommendable to update yourself on the state of affairs by reconnecting with some training partners or your coach. They will tell you about the recent developments in theory, share links to the apps and software you should download, advise what books to read, where to play, etc. 

Tip #5. Chess + traveling = ❤️. Even though the expression “chess tourist” has a negative connotation due to the Kasparov vs. Akopian beef, for many adults, the combination of playing chess and visiting a country they have never been to is a way to kill two birds with one stone. You may want to check if there are interesting open tournaments in the countries on your wish list and plan accordingly. 

Tip #6. Tactics every day keeps the patzer away. It would be great to create a daily routine of solving exercises for 30-60 minutes. Sounds like too much work? Start with 15 minutes then! Anything is better than nothing. Experiment with timed/untimed modes. Find a healthy mix of tasks that require a powerful combinational vision and those that are tackled by rigorous calculations. Check out the solutions and realize what you did wrong and why. Tactics Frenzy is a fantastic tool for becoming a tactical wizard. It has all the functionality mentioned above and much more. 

Tip #7. Give your openings an overhaul. If you have more time at your disposal than previously, you may want to add new ambitious openings to your arsenal. Or conversely, if you don’t have that much time and your memory is no longer as good as it was in your youth, you may have to find a quick fix for this in the form of opening setups that can be played without excessive analysis and memorization. 

At this stage, unless you are a professional player, it isn’t recommendable to book up too much. Finding a brilliant novelty is nice, but after a long break, you can expect silly blunders to be a more critical factor that determines the outcome of your games. Overall, the opening series from Magnus Trainer should allow you to form a solid foundation upon which you can build up material as you play more and gain additional experience. 

Tip #8. Make sure you are fit and healthy before entering an event. The psychological and physical pressures at chess tournaments are immense. I have seen players get strokes over the board, and there have been cases of people dying during the game due to one medical condition or the other. Please consult a doctor beforehand, especially if you are in the danger zone age-wise and if you have any serious chronic diseases. 

Tip #9. Enjoy the process of playing the game. Don’t overdramatize things; avoid being too hard on yourself if your play doesn’t live up to your expectations! Your performances should improve eventually as long as you are passionate about the process and having fun.  🤗

Haven’t played chess seriously in a long time? Check out our guide and return like a king!   

Returning to Chess After a Long Break: A Checklist

Many of us enjoy reading books or listening to lectures & motivational speeches given by eminent individuals who have attained international recognition in their fields of expertise. This process of fishing for the right "secrets of success" is an inherent part of human nature. Chess players are no exception to this rule.

My soft spot in this regard is not unique: I like to pay special attention to interesting anecdotes and facts from the life of the top chess players and subconsciously make comparisons between myself and them. This might not be a bad idea if you want to become a chess journalist or occasionally win a trivia by answering correctly who came first in Zurich 1953 and other tricky chess questions. However, I have met a few chess experts who played chess very poorly, while many modern GMs sometimes amaze me with their illiteracy in chess history. Playing and studying the games is usually more productive for someone who wants to improve than reading amusing stories about how one master called a fellow guy a moron.  

Notably, GM Simen Agdestein mentions in his book "Wonderboy Magnus Carlsen" that as a kid, Magnus was much more interested in the games of the world champions than in the opportunity to have a conversation with them. Maybe it was due to his age at that time and to his introverted personality, yet it is still another sign that paying more attention to the players' games is a good idea if you are concerned about improving your chess.  

Moreover, one must keep in mind that all of us are unique. The circumstances are different, and it takes quite some effort to determine which rules of thumb from the past to follow and which to disregard. For instance, let's consider Ian Nepomniachtchi's recent interview and see what he has to say about losing the World Chess Championship match to Magnus Carlsen in a rather dramatic fashion (7.5-3.5). 

Mike: Yeah, we've already asked about that at the post-game press conference, the actual chess. Getting back to your team, you obviously had [GM] Sergey Karjakin on your team; please correct me if I'm wrong if you had [GM] Peter Leko on your team, but both of those players have played for world championships, and I'm sure they tried to describe to you what it was going to be like to be in the tank. Not chess moves, but just that experience. Was there preparation for what it was like to play in the tank? Was it what you expected, or was it somehow different?

Ian: Well, I would say that Sergey joined somewhat last minute, so basically for the last month and it was mainly about some training, which probably, as it seems right now, were too intense and maybe not too well-timed because normally you'd probably have some break so you can play some blitz or bullet online. But if you try to play some serious or semi-serious games, not like blitz, just for training purposes, there's also a limit. You shouldn't be swallowed into this whole topic.

Indeed, it was quite instructive to speak with Peter and speak with Sergey about their world championship match experiences, but I understood after the match had started, that every match is unique. You can even imagine yourself in someone's shoes but at the same time the opponent can be different, and even if it's the same person, that person can play completely different chess with a completely different attitude.

Some general advice is not to pay too much attention to what people say, don't get too busy with some social media, and so on, but these are just general words. I asked a few questions, I asked [GM] Vladimir Kramnik [for] his thoughts. Sadly, we couldn't work together this time, but maybe sometime in the future. Of course, a lot of guys gave me a lot of advice, some of them had world championship match experience, some of them not. Perhaps today I would say that maybe it was a little bit too much, you know, trying to do your thing correctly according to all of this information you get because once again, every tournament is more or less unique and especially every match is unique and you have to prepare for your own situation. It was a bit of an unfortunate decision to try to build your preparation onto the experience of other people...

As you can see, Ian did his homework by talking to some people who have had experience playing World Chess Championship matches, hoping to discover some secrets that would help him perform better against Carlsen. However, according to Nepo, the decision to follow into the footsteps of others was not particularly beneficial for him. The "every match is unique" reminds me of a recent monologue by Vladimir Kramnik that he gave on the Levitov Chess YouTube channel. He lamented that, despite being experienced already, everything that could go wrong went wrong for him during the match against Anand in 2008, while in his very first match against Garry Kasparov in 2000 everything proceeded smoothly. In other words, if our own experience sometimes doesn't prove to be useful, then how can we expect someone else's experience to carry us through?

The one and only official chess game between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Shipov took place in 2006. 

For objectivity's sake, I don't want to create an impression that you should totally disregard the collective chess wisdom. For comparison, here is what GM Sergey Shipov, a well-known chess commentator and ex-coach of Ian Nepomniachtchi & Carlsen's second Daniil Dubov, posted in the Crestbook VK group:

Yesterday during the press conference, Ian pointed out that he might have over-trained before the match when commenting on the possible reasons for his loss.

Well, it happens. Grandpa [Mikhail] Botvinnik was not wrong on everything 😊

For instance, he recommended not to touch the chessboard for two weeks before an important tournament to which you are preparing in advance. Sleep, food, walks, physical workouts, and as little chess as possible! As a result, you preserve your passion for chess and are able to play with pleasure and at full force. Also, this way, it is easier to maintain focus and not blunder like Ian did. 

I believe that in our days the two weeks distance is excessive. One may as well shorten the chess "quarantine" to one week. And to throw some simple chess tactics into the mix – both for entertainment and for feeling better. 

Magnus seems to follow this routine, adding light-spirited blitz matches against relatively weak opponents to it. Sometimes he whitewashes an opponent and sleeps well afterward! 😉 Well, for all the future rivals of the World Chess Champion, the failure of the Challenger is going to become an instructive case study. Maybe for Ian himself as well…

Here we can see Shipov fall back on a classical tip dating back to the days of the hegemony of Soviet chess and adapt it slightly to meet the challenges of the modern age.  

Frankly speaking, I was shocked when I heard how many training games Nepo and Karjakin have played right before the match. Even before I discovered that, I looked at Nepo during the opening ceremony and told my friends that he conveys an impression of an exhausted person who has already played a match or two. My prediction was that his relatively poor physical form would haunt him in the second half of the match, as it often happens to Nepo, and will result in a loss in 14 games or sooner. 

It turns out I was spot on; Nepo did conduct two rigorous sparring matches against Karjakin and eventually lost the match against Carlsen. Admittedly, having said what I said earlier, I didn't expect it to go THAT badly for him! As an outsider, one can only wonder why a Challenger would commit 
 "every Russian schoolboy knows" mistakes and later comment on them as if he has learned something new for himself. Still, it is probably not that straightforward if Ian and his experienced team of GM coaches chose the path that they did.

Summarizing, for mere mortals resorting to analogies and walking in the footsteps of others is a useful strategy. Still, it must be applied with caution and tweaked depending on the circumstances. When talking about breakthrough moments, you often have to be an innovator to excel; simply following well-known recipes won't cut it. I guess this is one of the explanations why Ian failed: he tried to take on the role of a trendsetter but collapsed under the superhuman pressure of the match in general and Magnus "the alien" Carlsen in particular. 

Wondering how tough it was for Nepo to face Magnus over the board? Download Play Magnus and get a feel of how unforgiving the reigning World Chess Champion is!

Is reading the biographies of top chess players a must-do for a chess improver or an entertaining way to waste your time?

Is Reading the Biographies of Top Players a Waste of Time?

In a nutshell, chess is about making good moves. However, when it comes to finding them, it is easier said than done. Unsurprisingly, many chess players don’t reflect on why they have missed out on a certain promising opportunity and blame it on “bad luck.” 

In this blog post, we will analyze a few popular reasons why people oversee great chess moves that could have potentially changed the course of the game. Also, importantly, we will discuss what to do to minimize the chances of this happening to you. 

Generally speaking, we tend to miss good moves that seem unconventional to us. For example, if a novice has just been taught the value of each chess piece, he is unlikely even to consider a move that gives up a queen for a knight. A more experienced player may realize that this move is in fact a winning sacrifice that leads to mate. 

“Positional” players should solve more studies and tactical problems, analyze the games of the best attacking players, and pay more attention to the forcing moves in each position instead of positional factors. Also, having a more versatile style helps a lot, even though becoming a more universal player typically requires much work. GM Nigel Short used to say that pawn weaknesses don’t matter much if the game ends in a checkmate. However, I still know quite a few strategy-oriented players who won’t even consider making an “ugly” yet efficient move if it doesn’t look right from the positional point of view. Knowing the rules of thumb is very important, but a master should be able to work out the exceptions too.

Wrong evaluation of the position and/or failing to reevaluate it correctly 

In the Carlsen-Anand World Chess Championship match in 2014, Game 6 was quite critical. In the diagram position, Magnus has just played 26.Kd2??, to which Vishy quickly replied 26…a4?? instead of the pretty obvious move 26…Nxe5, collecting the e-pawn for free and putting further pressure on the c-pawn. Anand lost that game and later the entire match, while the intermediate capture 26…Nxe5 would have given him excellent winning chances in at least that particular encounter and could have been a strong psychological blow as well. 

Please check out the Magnus Trainer app if you are interested in a recap of Magnus Carlsen’s World Chess Championship matches, including an analysis of the endgame mentioned above. 

Many amateur kibitzers enjoy making fun of the world’s greats and nurturing their self-esteem by saying that they would have found the right move in a second if they had such an opportunity. By saying so, they ignore the over-the-board psychology. At that point, the position was relatively quiet. Magnus had an edge and felt like he could play for two results: a win or a draw. Vishy was psychologically in the mindset of trying to hold and prevent the active play of his opponent. After a natural move such as Kd2, it is quite natural for Black to keep believing that you are worse and not even try to readjust and search for a way to win. This is a very important phenomenon in general. Many games are lost due to misjudging the position. For example, let’s say you are considerably better (or at least you believe so). Then you make a few moves that you like while the opponent replies somewhat awkwardly. Such a development of events might make you lead you into thinking that you must be winning (“I had a good position and was doing sensible things, while he came up with some rubbish moves”). However, often your initial assessment might turn out to be wrong, or you might have made some poor moves and not noticed it, thus ending in an equal or worse position. The stronger the player is, the better he can evaluate each position and quickly readjust if he feels like the last move has changed the assessment. 

Needless to say, both Magnus and Vishy would have found 26..Ne5 in the blink of an eye if you had shown them a diagram with the position and asked to propose the best move for Black. However, in the psychological context of the over-the-board play they have both missed it.

Chess illiteracy and being a slave of chess stereotypes

Masters know many standard positions and typical plans and reactions. This is usually acquired by going over other players’ games and through personal experience, as well as profoundly analyzing the positions of interest. A newbie will often spend a lot of time on a move and still fail to find the right idea just due to not having seen such a situation before. As compared to pros, amateurs spend tremendous amounts of time and mental energy on reinventing the wheel, not to mention that sometimes they fail to make such an important discovery. 

The other side of the coin is religiously following the plans you have seen earlier; adhering to stereotypes about certain positions prevalent among players of your skill level. For example, if you ask one of the chess students why he believes that f5 should be played for Black in a position, he might reply that it is a standard breakthrough in such structures aimed at starting an attack on the kingside. However, it may well turn out that either the break is inappropriate in this specific case, or there is a much better “non-standard” move. Once again, please don’t fall under the illusion that chess is just a set of guidelines that can be followed automatically to reach success. The game is more sophisticated than that.

These three reasons are quite popular and make up for a large percentage of all the mistakes associated with not finding the optimal move. However, there are many more of them to come. Stay tuned for the next blog post in our series! 

Let’s explore some of the most popular reasons why people choose bad moves in chess over good ones!

Are you as happy about your tactics as Magnus is on this image?

What was the saying once again? “Solving tactics every day keeps the blunders away”? Chess is a challenging game, so mistakes are inevitable. Still, enhancing your tactical capabilities can drastically improve your performance over the board by reducing your blunder rate and allowing you to capitalize on your opponent’s oversights.

However, if you are serious about your chess training and keep following this advice day by day, at some point, you might get bored. Just like you need to surprise your body by changing the gym training routine after a certain period, you may want to try something new to get your brain excited and fresh.

Let’s go over several different ways you can train tactics.

Standard mode. Feel free to take as long as you want to solve the puzzle. What matters is that you get it right in the end. If you are using an app such as our beloved Tactics Frenzy, the process is straightforward. When it comes to books, make sure to write down your solutions and check them carefully. Otherwise, it is tempting to peek into the answer page and to say: “Yes, I saw that idea!” even if your move order was wrong or you weren’t sure which option to pick in the end.

Rated mode. When solving puzzles from books or newspapers, it is hard to keep track of your performance and see whether you are making any progress. Apps/online tools/software are better in the sense of allowing you to monitor such data, as well as other vital statistics, such as time spent, the number of puzzles solved, and so on. Just don’t be too hard on yourself rating-wise. Remember that things take time!

Timed mode. Depending on the difficulty of the puzzle, give yourself a fixed amount of time to tackle it. When the time runs out, you have to make the best move in the position as if it were a real game. The objective is to find the solution, but even if you don’t get it right, check how good your continuation was. Was it a neutral move, or did you blunder something? Analyze the position and realize what went wrong in your thinking process.

Cooperative mode. You can try this with a training partner or even as a group. Take on relatively complex puzzles, discuss them together, come up with surprising suggestions, refute each other’s analysis, or build upon it. It is always interesting to get to know how other people approach specific chess positions. Hopefully, eventually, you will arrive at the solution. Even if not, the way you all agreed to something dead stupid also provides for a lot of chess entertainment – trust us, we have been there many times!

Competition mode. Whereas the “cooperative mode” is better suited for developing teamwork skills, the “competition mode” was prevalent in the USSR, where the emphasis in school studies was on excelling individually. You can take on a series of puzzles with your training partner(s), all on your own, and see who performs better in the end! It will be interesting to discover whether your brain functions better or worse under such extreme conditions.

You don’t have to wear a blindfold for this mode, but you score extra style points for doing so!

Blindfold mode. This one is for advanced players. Take a careful look at the position, memorize it and then try to work out the solution in your head. For even more advanced players, you can combine it with the distraction mode (see below).

Distraction mode. If it is hard for you to focus during the game, you may want to make life even more challenging for yourself while training. Combine solving chess puzzles with other activities, such as doing squats, running, cooking, talking, etc. Just make sure your milk doesn’t boil over! Bonus points for streaming the process and getting new subscribers/donations this way.

Practice mode. This one can be done against a training partner or an engine. Approach the starting position of a puzzle as if it were a real game. Play it out and see what the outcome is going to be. Quite often, people focus purely on landing spectacular tactical strikes to realize they don’t have the technique to convert their advantage later on in the game. This method works particularly well for complex positions where both sides have tactical resources.

Test mode. Take on a series of puzzles to determine how sharp you are tactically. Usually, the author(s) of the test will let you know the conditions and goals, so you will be aware how to handle the task.

Woodpecker mode. The idea of this method is to automate your pattern recognition by solving a series of puzzles repetitively until you can cruise through them on autopilot. In a nutshell, you try to solve the exercises as well and quickly as you can. After a certain amount of time passes, you repeat the cycle, trying to improve your results both timewise and performance-wise. You can read about this approach in more detail in the book “The Woodpecker Method” by Grandmasters Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen.

Do-it-yourself mode. One way of maturing into an even more sophisticated tactician involves creating your chess puzzles and making sure there are no loopholes in the solutions. You don’t necessarily have to become a chess composer and take part in chess composition contests (are you aware of their existence, by the way?), but devising some devious puzzles and sharing them with your friends can be very fulfilling. Make them sweat!

Bait (“Jebaited”) mode. A severe drawback of allocating too much time to traditional puzzle-solving is that you may start disrespecting the opponent’s resources and sacrificing pieces left and right, assuming that if there is a tactical motif in the position, then it will always work out in your favor. However, in real games, flashy combinations are quite often refuted by even more mind-blowing counterstrikes.

Therefore, it is helpful to takes on series of tactical exercises where some of the puzzles provoke you into falling for incorrect combinations and getting punished for doing so. This mode is a good reminder that real-life opponents are more than a punching bag that takes all your hits and never complains.

Feel free to experiment with the methods suggested above and see which ones you like most! Or, even better, come up with new tactics training ideas.

Solved a fantastic puzzle? Discovered a revolutionary training method? Don’t forget to share your passion with others on social networks using the hashtag #TacticsFrenzy!

Are you as happy about your tactics as Magnus is on this image? What was the saying once again? “Solving tactics every day keeps the blunders 

One of the methods of defending in the endgame against superior enemy forces is gathering all your men into a fist within a small fortified camp. Lock the doors, shut the windows!

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Get “A Fortified Camp” and 462 other lessons in Magnus Trainer now!

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Twice a week, the Play Magnus team works to bring you a fresh, new lesson designed to help improve your chess skills. Lessons help you learn everything, from strategy and tactics to openings and endgames.

Keep an eye out for these new lessons, coming to Magnus Trainer every Monday and Thursday

One of the methods of defending in the endgame against superior enemy forces is gathering all your men into a fist within a small fortified camp. Lock the doors, shut the windows! 

♟️🧰 New Lesson // A Fortified Camp

Back in the day when it was played, Hikaru Nakamura dubbed this brilliancy “the best game he ever played”. A well-calculated queen sacrifice and other spectacular tactical fireworks await you in our new lesson!

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Get “Decoy 3 - Hikaru Nakamura's Immortal Game” and 461 other lessons in Magnus Trainer now!

Back in the day when it was played, Hikaru Nakamura dubbed this brilliancy “the best game he ever played”. A well-calculated queen sacrifice and other spectacular tactical fireworks await you in our new lesson! 

♟️🧰 New Lesson // Decoy 3 - Hikaru Nakamura's Immortal Game

David Bronstein, to whom Viktor Kortschnoj referred to as a “genius”, tied the legendary Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Chess Championship match. Check out our new lesson to learn more about his personality and to discover a game featuring one of his best combinations.

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Get “David Bronstein” and 460 other lessons in Magnus Trainer now!

David Bronstein, to whom Viktor Kortschnoj referred to as a “genius”, tied the legendary Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Chess Championship match. Check out our new lesson to learn more about his personality and to discover a game featuring one of his best combinations. 

An advantage in development is all you need to wipe the floor with your opponents, creating masterpieces along the way. Let’s master the art of obtaining and exploiting this advantage!

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Get “Advantage in development” and 459 other lessons in Magnus Trainer now!

An advantage in development is all you need to wipe the floor with your opponents, creating masterpieces along the way. Let’s master the art of obtaining and exploiting this advantage! 

♟️🧰 New Lesson // Advantage in development

Tactics Frenzy Is The New Chess Pandemic

Returning to Chess After a Long Break: A Checklist

Is Reading the Biographies of Top Players a Waste of Time?

Why Do We Miss Good Moves? – Part I

Twelve Fun Ways of Solving Chess Tactics

♟️🧰 New Lesson // A Fortified Camp

♟️🧰 New Lesson // Decoy 3 - Hikaru Nakamura's Immortal Game

♟️🧰 New Lesson // David Bronstein

♟️🧰 New Lesson // Advantage in development