Tactics Program
This tactics training program should not take more than 30 minutes per session, and it is flexible enough where you can adjust the amount of puzzles and / or the amount of time spent per puzzle as well as the session time so that you can customize it to your needs and study time available.
Week 1
Day 1 = 10 puzzles @ 3 minutes per puzzle
Day 2 = 10 new + 10 from day 1(d1) = 20 puzzles @ 1.5 min / puzzle
Day 3 = 10 new + 10d1 + 10d2 = 30 puzzles @ 1 min / puzzle
Day 4 = 10 new + 10d1 + 10d2 + 10d3 = 40 puzzles @ 45 sec / puzzle
Day 5 = Review previous 40 questions @ 35 sec / puzzle
Week 2
Days 1-4 are the same as week 1
Day 5 Repeat 40 questions from week + include 10 random questions from the previous week for a total of 50 questions @ 35 sec/ question.
Resources
Since we will be using a smaller pool of puzzles, it is very important that the puzzles selected provide the user with the most critical patterns so that you can get the most benefit out of your study time.
While you can use any book or software that contains rich tactical / strategic positions, the following two books contain 900 critical positions that will assist you in getting the most out of your training time:
- Lev Alburt’s Chess Training Pocket Book contains 300 critical positions.
- Practical Chess Exercises by Ray Cheng provides us with 600 tactical and strategic positions gathered from real amateur level games.
contains 300 critical positions.
I like your idea of giving any beginners some puzzles to resolve. This develops the problem solving capability from the very outset. This should serve as a tool for some potential creativity on the student’s part as well. Maybe somewhere in the puzzle, there may be another path to victory. Good job !