[4restm]

The advice we were given in my veterinary entomology course was to tweeze as close as you could from the base and pull perpendicularly to the skin.

You shouldnt yank it, more along the lines of the force you'd use to open a zipper.

[yread]

I've had 100+ ticks always removed them using wet cloth with a tiny bit of (solid) soap turning counter-clockwise. Somehow clockwise never worked for me, counter-clockwise it was out after the 2nd rotation. We had both lyme and tick-borne encephalitis in the family, not too bad if caught early.