Hi,

 I am a new member.  I came for Chess Mentor (which is AWESOME and I will likely be a long-time subscriber) and then got a monthly premium account today to check out the tactics trainer and the rest of the site.  I normally play on [edit]another site[/edit] but I am finding this site VERY NICE and am pretty sure that I am going to switch over permanently.

 I have one suggestion about the Tactics Trainer -- it seems like the problem set is very heavily weighted towards dramatic sacrifice mates.  Wouldn't it be a much more effective training tool if there was a better balance including more quiet tactical positions?

the point of the tactics trainer is to get you familiar with certain tactical manuevers like taking advantage of a piece doing too many jobs (to win a significant amount of material) or checkmates with only bishops and a queen sacrifice.  the idea is that, having seen enough tactical pratices along these lines, you'll be able to utilize them effectively in games.  the same is true for the "dramatic sacrifice mates"  - the point is to win the game, and winning quickly with such mates is the best way to do it.  they are also exceptional because the game might seem to be in your opponent's favor and he will neglect to plan for the seemingly dramatic moves you might pull.  i personally find the tactics trainer very useful.

i'm glad to hear you're thinking about coming to chess.com - i like the site very much.  welcome and enjoy!

I agree that they are useful, but I feel that they are in much too high of a proportion in the tactics trainer!  At my level (1150-1600 rated problems), they seem to be 80% of the problems.

 

     

i agree - we need some more variety. we have been working really hard on getting more problems in there. getting quality problems is actually a lot harder than i thought it would be :) our computers are working hard on it and we will post more soon!

i like the tactics trainer it's helped me improve my game, exponentially