I've been watching my son's rating on Chesskid tactics trainer grow pretty quickly recently.
Recently, he's hit 1660 - he's 6 year's old, and has been solving puzzles steadily over the last 2 years. He loves doing the puzzles every morning and has several thousand under his belt.
Now, whilst I'm obviously very proud of him, and a little gobsmacked at the high rating, I am very interested in the large disparity between his game playing rating (800-900) and TT rating. The game playing rating is, to me, a lot more typical/normal for a youngster.
Clearly, a key issue is that tactical skills are outweighing other aspects of the game (and for the time being I'd like to think I'm strong enough to coach an 800-900 player on these aspects). However, even taking into account this explanation, the disparity in the two ratings does seem extremely high.
Does anyone have any alternative explanation? I'm wondering, for example: (1) is the TT on Chesskids a little more generous with rating points than it should be? (2) does the fact that there are fewer puzzles on Chesskid TT (compared to chess.com TT) mean that there is a higher degree of repetition, and therefore more "learning" of the specific puzzles? (3) perhaps the big disparity is simply symptomatic of kids learning very young and having access to amazing tools like TT these days (certainly I wouldn't expect to see such big differences between TT ratings and standard play ratings in an adult).
Anyway, I'm interested if people have any views, or similar experiences.
W
My guess is just simply that what the kid sees in tactics training, puzzles, etc. simply don't come up in the games he play.
Working out a solution from an already existing position is a lot easier than actually getting your way there, actually setting up the tactical traps.
The reason the difference is so big is simply this: he doesn't yet know how to set the traps up in his games. When he gets there, the rating will follow naturally.
I've been watching my son's rating on Chesskid tactics trainer grow pretty quickly recently.
Recently, he's hit 1660 - he's 6 year's old, and has been solving puzzles steadily over the last 2 years. He loves doing the puzzles every morning and has several thousand under his belt.
Now, whilst I'm obviously very proud of him, and a little gobsmacked at the high rating, I am very interested in the large disparity between his game playing rating (800-900) and TT rating. The game playing rating is, to me, a lot more typical/normal for a youngster.
Clearly, a key issue is that tactical skills are outweighing other aspects of the game (and for the time being I'd like to think I'm strong enough to coach an 800-900 player on these aspects). However, even taking into account this explanation, the disparity in the two ratings does seem extremely high.
Does anyone have any alternative explanation? I'm wondering, for example: (1) is the TT on Chesskids a little more generous with rating points than it should be? (2) does the fact that there are fewer puzzles on Chesskid TT (compared to chess.com TT) mean that there is a higher degree of repetition, and therefore more "learning" of the specific puzzles? (3) perhaps the big disparity is simply symptomatic of kids learning very young and having access to amazing tools like TT these days (certainly I wouldn't expect to see such big differences between TT ratings and standard play ratings in an adult).
Anyway, I'm interested if people have any views, or similar experiences.
W