Dan Heisman's Looking for Trouble is exposing me as a lazy ne'er-do-well. I certainly have the ability to sit down and calculate lines sometimes, given that I sometimes solve level 50 problems on CT Art (not often enough!). I'm just not doing as well on this as I should be. I'm often content to say, "Oh, I've found the threat, here's a line that looks okay, I'm done," even when there are six possible ways of dealing with the threat that need to be evaluated.
I also butted up against the problem of not knowing the pattern meaning you just can't solve the problem. It was on a level 50 problem based on a Tal game (of course!). I kept calculating lines and found one that looked good, but just couldn't get from the position I ended up in to a mate (and I would need a mate). It was the most promising, though, so I tried the first few moves and they were right, but then I got to the tough position and still couldn't figure it out. The 5x5 hint was... that same position. Drat. Once the computer showed me how to solve the 5x5 (bishop to the corner!), I got it. So I have another pattern now.
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