I think that Tactics Trainer is bipolar.  I'm playing against it at about a 1200 level, by which I mean that problems rated around 1200 I can solve about half the time, and those are the problems that are teaching me best.  However, TT won't give me any of those problems.  It keeps lowballing me with 700 level problems and every once in a while it gives me a 1400 level problem which I can't solve.  This has been going on for the last few days, and it has happend on several occasions in the past.

Is there any way this can be fixed, or do I just have to suffer along until TT catches snap and starts to act more rationally?

Perhaps a feature could be implemented where we can choose what sort of puzzles we want (the ratings would be based on our current ratings:

Very Easy (About 500 below your TT rating)

Easy (About 250 below)

Normal (Around your level)

Hard (About 250 above)

Very Hard (About 500 above)

Random Selection (Could be any level)

Just a thought.

Well if you did unrated you can set the rating range for the problems you want to have. I don't know if there is a way to do this with rated problems though.

You have to play it more.  Its still trying to find  your rating range.  The more problems you solve the better it will pinpoint your exact rating range.  If you're solving 1200 lvl problems half the time then you're not 1200 lvl.  It will continue to give you lower rated problems until you earned the right to get the 1200 lvl constantly.

it may be that you have already finished a TON of them in your rating range and it is not moving out from there... are you a heavy user?

Well, that might be it.  I play for an hour each day, and at the moment I'm up to 6347 attempts.  However, if that really is the reason, I would certainly prefer that TT give me things within my range rather than throwing only underated and overrated problems at me.  Let's face it, I'm not so good that repeating problems is a hinderance! :)

Thanks for pointing that out.  However, I'd really prefer to set my ratings range while continuing to play them as rated problems, as this is the best way to track my performance.  Another problem with setting it to unrated is that the problems are no longer timed, and I consider that to be an important part of using the TT.

Umm just as an aside, if I am rated 1800 for tactics trainer, would it be a good time to advance toward understanding of positional and strategic play or still keep hammering those tactics. I don't mean I would give up doing tactics, just allocate my time a little differently.

I don't think you can be out of problems. Tactics Trainer will give you problems you've done before. Maybe Erik can confirm whether it will give you problems you've gotten right before.

RoyalFlush1991> if I am rated 1800 for tactics trainer, would it be a good time to advance toward understanding of positional and strategic play.

Look at your last dozen games. Why did you lose them?

But it sounds reasonable. Don't forget endgames! In RoyalFlush1991 vs Sahkovich, you had a won pawn endgame, then you gave it to your opponent, then he gave it back to you again. Studying zugzwang and Steinitz Rule would help. :)

I think tactics trainer is a good way to practice your tactics and a good way to become familiar with tactical patterns, but to learn tactics nothing beats a good tactics puzzle book. Once you have learned the ideas and position revolving around certain tactical ideas from the book, then it is a good idea to practice them on tactics trainer and become good at spotting them quickly on the board.

Hey thx a lot for the comment likesforests. Right now I'm going through Winning Chess Strategies, Seirawin. Reassess Your Chess, Silman. And I've ordered Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move. Learn Chess Tactics, Nunn; and Silman's Complete Endgame Course. If you have any other recommendations it'd be greatly appreciated.

menofsticks - you have run out of problems in your range :) we're going to solve this soon in 2 ways - more problems, and use a rolling memory history so that problems you saw 60 days ago are put back into the queue. however, that would mean that you would lose your history with that problem (what you got on it the first time would be erased and it would be like new).

@erik

Sounds great!  Although, 60 days might be a bit long.  Could this time-to-live be an option in TT settings?

And I'm assuming "soon" means "tomorrow morning," right? :)

;) sure. maybe 30 days. won't be an option :) maybe though we'll just give you a "clear problem history older than 30 days" option in settings.

we'll do this next year. ;)

have fun!