I don't know what it is with this Tactics Trainer thing anymore. I've tried racing the clock, spotting patterns, playing the most obvious move, and now this:

 30 tactics in a row, not a single mistake. And guess what? Again, my rating goes down instead of up. What am I to make of this? Does this mean I'm bad at tactics?

Well, your time is multiple minutes above the average in some cases.

Not that that's bad, I don't like timed tactics either.

But I suppose the ratings of the tactics are figured in with the average time it takes to solve them.  So you "beat" them, but lost on time because other 1600s solved them faster.

Again I don't like that kind of TT, but that's how this site does it.

If you solve the problem but you take too much time your rating goes down.

It's a good thing, the time pressure is part of the challenge.

Well I think it's a bad thing, because you're practicing cursory decisions, moving as soon as something seems to work.  This is never how you play in a real game.

I guess in moderation it woudln't be bad... something to do with pattern recognition ??

Do you mean I have to choose quickly in order to improve my pattern recognition instead of taking my time to avoid failing the puzzle?

@OP: I recommend giving less concern to your TT rating. The important thing is that you are practicing your tactics, getting them right, and learning the patterns. As you continue to practice patiently, the speed will come, and your rating will take care of itself.

Wow, 30 correct in a row! Congrats, cuz I certainly can't do that. I think ur rating is going down only because you're taking too much time. Not saying that it's a bad thing, but tactics trainer problems are scored depending on time. See how u got only 20% a lot of the time? That's why ur rating is going down.

Well maybe... in certain controlled and measured training sessions maybe you could argue that it helps pattern recognition.

IMO, best for patten learning though is just to stick with it 5-10 minutes until you've solved it.

Heh, timed tactics... seems it's about the same as blitz games.  It may help you polish some things you already know, but to improve you're going to have to get away from the clock.