How to use templates Forum

[gobosox]

I've been working through LGs for a while now-- finished the LGB and one of my big problems is knowing when to do templates.

I did a game today (PT 25, S3, game 3) where I went through by brute strength and got a -1 on it in 10:10. After thorough review, I realized that the game broke down into three different templates that I could have solved every question on in about a minute or two total. It was a really easy game that should not have been so difficult.

I guess my question is, how do you know when to break it down into templates from the setup? It seems like a gamble, because if you start to make templates and realize they don't fit, you've just wasted 3 minutes. Does anyone have guidelines for when to create different templates for LG and when to just create a base diagram/rules and go to the questions? This has happened to me a few times now... Thanks!