How to build a tactics deck from your games

A tactics deck works when every puzzle is a mistake you actually make. A random pack of famous combinations will not fix the piece you hang on move 15.

After a game, keep only the positions where the evaluation swung and you had a choice. One game should give you one to three puzzles, not twenty. Save the position before your move, and the move you should have played.

Name the deck after the pattern, not the opponent. “Loose pieces” and “Knight forks” stay useful. “Game vs Alex” does not.

Cap a deck at the positions you will actually repeat. One hundred is already a lot. If you cannot finish the deck in a week, it is too big and the early puzzles go stale.

Repeat the deck until the right move is immediate. Then stop adding to it and start a new deck for the next pattern. Mixing every theme in one pile makes the review slower.