Tactic Trainer Timer needs to be removed

On a recent puzzle the average time was 15 seconds. That's absurd. What can you learn from a game you're not really playing and only have that much time to make a move? If I was in on this game I would know how many pieces I was up or down and many other important things that take up time. Like which side I'm even playing!

If I take any time to really examine the board that was just thrown in front of me, I'm going to lose points to those that make quick moves of reflex.

Tactic trainer doesn't really teach you to think. Where am I going to find myself in a situation where I run across a random game and have to quickly make the best move possible?

Plus, people may have distractions at home. Doorbell/phone rings, etc. The timer should be taken out completely (for scoring purposes) since solving it correctly matters the most. Being rushed to solve it, leads to you making thoughtless moves, and what do you learn from that anyway?

Everyone ability to make the best move isn't going to skyrocket if everyone can be allowed to think at their own speed. Their ability may increase because they are allowed to think about the problem. The ratings for the problems would remain relevant.

I have no idea why this site thinks that you learn better this way, when mine and most others' ratings have been stagnant over the years.

So no, I don't find myself jumping into random games I've never seen before, and need to find the best possible move in a matter of seconds. The tactics Trainer should be helping you think tactically. In a learning environment, you shouldn't be getting rushed. That's for actual game play if the timer does become an issue. (I mean seriously, would you expect a video lesson to have someone talking as fast as possible with no replay button, and if you didn't catch it, then too bad?)

I can spend several seconds on: figuring out what color I'm playing (something that has rarely hurt my actually games), examining the board, and only then begin to think about a tactical move. With 15 seconds average time on a clock, I might get it in time to score a positive rating, but only because the problem was so easy that I learned nothing from it.

If anyone want to argue that it's a reflection of how other players did, no, it's not. A higher ranked player would knock the time down further, but then they aren't given these problems. These are given only to a subset of players at that particular artificial TT rating.

Knocking the timer out of the loop can only help people think more, allowing them to grow mentally with their skills in solving these problems.

"I have no idea why this site thinks that you learn better this way, when mine and most others' ratings have been stagnant over the years."

Where did you get this from?

The idea of this tactics trainer is to quickly recognise and build up lots of tactical patterns. If the average time is 15 seconds it's either an easy hanging piece or an obvious pattern that you haven't learnt well enough. Being able to spot them quickly isn't just good for blitz but for recognising possible opponent attacks easy, ruling out candidate moves, knowing where to put your pieces. Knowing basic patterns well allows you in a game to build towards more complicated lines, and meaning you don't have to calculate as far.

If you want untimed try chesstempo or a chess puzzle book. This isn't designed for that. Or just take your time and you will progress as you start to recognise positions more quickly.

Plenty of patterns I see as soon as the board loads and it's a case of just checking for defensive resources.

If you're complaining that there's always a clearly winning move, that's the idea of tactics trainer. There are enough find the best move programs if you don't want it to just be tactics. (Chess Hero, Find the Move, Chessgames Guess the Move)

If you want untimed, you might also simply ignore the clock.

The timer is an integral part of TT. Having the option of timed or untimed, however, would be a site improvement. Chess Tempo offers both with different rating pools for the two modes. The problems are rated differently, too, when solved untimed rather than timed.

Actually the option of a timed or untimed already exists. Just only for paying members.

Yeah but the untimed here doesn't give you a rating.

I don't know if you understood my post. I get nearly every problem correct. But since it takes a while to see everything you need to see, you are being tested on how fast you can spot things that aren't related to chess. Like figuring out which side is yours. Sometimes the computer makes a move and sometimes it doesn't. I've wasted a few seconds a few times waiting for the computer to make its move.

If you get a single problem wrong it sets you back quite a bit, whereas if you get it right, you might only get a few points because you're being tested against how fast others play at, not how good they are at finding the pattern.

I'm pretty much stuck at my rating for a few years now. Which means I keep seeing the same tactical motifs over and over. I know how to sac my queen to death. By why do I need to rush to do it?

And I do play at other sites for this reason. I happen to like some of the features here. As for the rating, that's not real, so I don't care about that. Paying members can set which ratings they want to get from.

I understand you fine, I'm just telling you that's that not the focus of the tactics trainer here.

Even if you get nearly every easy problem correct (not that I think 57% is close to nearly every), because you don't raise your rating by solving them quicker you don't get to see harder patterns.

You need to rush because there's limited time in a game. You need to be able to spot 1500 patterns instantly to be able to find harder tactics in any sort of time restraint.

Actually in reference to what you said about it being a hanging piece. It was. The computer moves so quickly in the beginning that I thought that it had captured something. If it had been a queen or rook for example, I'm not going to do a simple recapture of a bishop. Turned out that it was nothing at all! Which means I have to count how many pieces I have vs what they have. In an on going actual game, I would already know all that information.

So I lost a lot of time trying to find a pattern for whatever it took.

So like I said. It's not really teaching me anything. I don't need to learn how to grab a hanging piece. 

I can see the value in wanting to race against a clock. But that would only test the skills you've already learned. It would probably be better called Tactic Tester. If you compare this to any other thing in the world the learning environment is always slowed down.

If I wanted to practice in real time the tactical motifs I've learned ina rushed setting, uh, there's this thing on here called live chess. I can just do that.

"I can see the value in wanting to race against a clock. But that would only test the skills you've already learned. It would probably be better called Tactic Tester. If you compare this to any other thing in the world the learning environment is always slowed down."

It reinforced what you know and teaches you by your mistakes.

You don't have to figure it out yourself to learn it. I know plenty of patterns now that I was showed after a mistake and I didn't calculate initially.

Why not get a puzzle book if you don't want to be rushed, or use any of the other sites without a timer?

"So like I said. It's not really teaching me anything. I don't need to learn how to grab a hanging piece."

Maybe you do with a 57% solve rate, especially if like you say, you're not rushing for the clock and trying to get them all correct.

That's 57% overall from since 2008. Look at my most recent ones. It's a little higher than 57%. Plus you have to consider the buggy nature of this site. I've seen so many problems that won't let me move and the clock just runs. I have to move the opponents piece and then it fails me. So I wouldn't take the site's percentage as a accurate reading of anything.

Another dumb thing about the ratings here is that I can fail a problem and still get a positive score if it's 5 moves correct out of 6.

There's also some problems that are rated at 1100 that have a pass rate of like 3% because of this. They don't apply weights to each move, so if the last move is the hardest and everyone misses that one, it should be rated much higher.

"Another dumb thing about the ratings here is that I can fail a problem and still get a positive score if it's 5 moves correct out of 6."

Yeah I fully agree with this, partial credit should be scrapped.

That's the point. I would have to go somewhere else if I wanted to learn anything. It just isn't set up to teach.

Well my tactics have improved a lot through using it.

Slowly solving problems and aiming for total accuracy just isn't the only way to improve your tactics.

But it's unlikely that you've only used tactic trainer.

My rating on TT has only improved when I've done other things like reading books on chess. TT is more like a test. You don't learn much from taking a test. It just measures your current skill level.

I agree with  chessplayer11, I've only ever played turn-based chess on this site & having to assimilate an unfamiliar position in a few seconds & then work through what can be a complicated sequence in limited time, doesn't help me much either !  In any game I play, I have at least 24 hours to calculate each move.

I can remember solving one difficult problem of around 5 moves & without any errors but it took me over a minute & I lost points because of it. Usually the computer moves first but every so often it doesn't & you're left waiting until you realise this - what's that about !!

I became so frustrated with TT that I left it alone for months but now I'm using it again because,as a paying member, I'm able to set it to 'unrated' mode (note-you can't switch the clock off, it still sits there ticking away!)

I think there should be two different ratings, one that's timed & one not timed. After all, shouldn't it be of use to all of us & not just those who play Live chess most or all of the time ?

I only really play online chess, I'm terrible at blitz and the time limits are fine a lot of the time once you have enough experience in the tactics trainer.

You can't switch the timer off if you've disabled ratings? I know I can do it.

Yeah I've been a little annoyed with the TT lately myself.  My rating had crept up into the 1700's with a high of 1850 and I'm nowhere near that good at tactics.  Problem is that there's what I call "pity mode" where the computer feeds you a problem that you missed earlier.  Heck, even I can get those right!  There is even what I call "dumb sh#t  mode"  where the computer gives you the same problem twice in a row (a problem that I've apparently missed many times before).  This rating creep results in problems that are just over my head.  Coach Heisman about a month ago advised another member who had been stuck in the 1800's for a long time that he needed to work more on simpler patterns.  I have Bain"s book on Chess Tactics for Students and it's good, but I wanted problems just a little more complex.   My solution?  I deleted my 21,000 problem history and started over.  I do this every 2or 3 days now and I am a much happier TT user.  Once I start pushing toward 1500, I simply reset it.  Now the timer is almost irrelevant because I can recognize most of the patterns at the 12, 13, or 1400 level.  Musicamole had a few threads on the benefits of doing this about a year ago and I admit to thinking it was a dumb idea at the time (What? You want me to give up my hard earned points?).  Not saying it's for everyone, but it might be worth a try.

I am a paying member, and I do not have the option of untimed rated problems here on chess.com. I am also a paying member at Chess Tempo where I do have that option.

I suggested a site improvement that could resolve your complaint, and you try to shoot it down with misinformation.