My Bad Eye is Bothering Me

I have a bad tactical eye

       I’ve never liked blitz. The reason is because I have a bad tactical eye which is what you need for blitz.  And, not being good at it, I avoid it.

       Probably the main reason for my dislike of tactics goes way back to my early training and chess heroes.  When I was actually studying chess decades ago few books on tactics existed; most books concerned themselves with the positional aspects of the game.  Also, Botvinnik ruled the chess world and he was a positional guy.  And after wearing the covers off books like 100 Selected Games (Botvinnik), Reshevsky On Chess, Basic Chess Endings (Fine), Tarrasch’s Best Games (Reinfeld), The Middlegame in Chess (Fine) and Modern Chess Strategy (Pachman) tactical study just got neglected. 

        Because I never really put any effort into studying tactics, even now after fifty plus years, my tactical ability is at best mediocre...actually, if I'm being honest, bad is a better description.  I just finished two 10-minute games on chessdotcom.  The first one I lost when I hung a N in a nearly equal position.  In this game, I thought I played pretty well until I looked at it with Houdini…isn’t that always the case?  I didn’t realize all the tactics that were going on in the middlegame…typical of us rating challenged folks.  I hate blitz because it makes me look so bad.