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I am studying from Lazlo Polgar's "Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games", there are positions with heavy material imbalance for example like a lone King against Queen, 2 Knights and King under the category to find mate in 2 or 3 moves.

Some of them are not easy for me even after few minutes to find mate with the given 2 or 3 moves but I can easily do in 4 or 5 moves.

In cases like this with large material imbalance why should I spend my energy and time in finding the fastest sequence if I can do the same with slightly more number of moves? What do I gain by knowing the fastest sequence?

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    I voted to close because it is basically a repeat of the following question, which you can go read my answer to there: chess.stackexchange.com/questions/27122/…
    – PhishMaster
    Commented Dec 21, 2019 at 19:08
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    In addition, it is related to this purpose: chess.stackexchange.com/questions/26825/…
    – PhishMaster
    Commented Dec 21, 2019 at 19:08
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    I hope those answer your question. If not, I would be glad to retract my close vote.
    – PhishMaster
    Commented Dec 21, 2019 at 19:09
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    @PhishMaster, no you can close, the other question answered my question. Thank you
    – srk_cb
    Commented Dec 21, 2019 at 19:17
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    I admit, until reading the Yusupov book, I also did not see the value in them.
    – PhishMaster
    Commented Dec 21, 2019 at 19:23

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There is no advantage if your goal is to improve your OTB rating. The time wasted solving a problem in fewer moves would be better spent learning things that you could use in your games.

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  • Then how come this book is so popular and this method is used by many coaches
    – srk_cb
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 4:18
  • Have not seen the book, just answered the question. Why are so many people suckered by scams? How many people using that book can actually show results because they used that book? Could they have made faster better easier results by solving other problems instead of trying to shave a move off the solution to a given problem?
    – yobamamama
    Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 10:42

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