This morning’s tactics session as suboptimal. After solving the first one correctly, I did so poorly that I dropped my rating 98 points from 3038 to 2940. I continued to solve with increased determination, ending at 3004. The last exercise, which I solved correctly in 4:59, offers a case study in distraction. How often do we focus on one area of the board, completely oblivious to what else is happening somewhere else.
I spend most of five minutes trying to make something work on the queenside, noting the threatened knight fork if my queen strayed. I looked at the contact between the bishops. In the last few seconds after expending so much time looking at unproductive lines, I noticed Black’s fatal problem on the kingside and executed the simple mate in two.
