Did Tactics Trainer just get harder?

Sometimes when I fail a problem, TT will give me a rated retest. What are the criteria that trigger this feature?

Glad this wasn't just me. I lost 200 points in a very short space of time and reported pretty much all of them for being ridiculous. I was getting pretty annoyed that all these patantly worthless tactics had all been auto approved. I know staff are busy, but how long would it take to check at a glance the evals of the new problems? You don't need to introduce 15,000 problems all at once.

In fact I thought I'd see what happened if I left it with timer - and it seems to have auto-adjusted to my (rapidly falling) rating & giving me easier problems. OK I still lose points as I go out of time but I can work on that I hope.

Rated mode is occasionally frustrating, for sure. But the good thing is that the system gives you feedback on your performance/progress, and you should be getting problems aimed at your skill level as you go! :)

Yes - and it is putting me under a little useful pressure so it feels like a live game - good training. I would like an option that the computer waits say 30sec before it makes its move so that I could study the board - as may happen in a not-totally blitz game.

I like the unrated mode, being stuck in the 1400-1500 rating for months I like the fact that I can recieve 2000+ tactics in the unrated mode, and still solve those problems with the same 50% pass rate that I solve the 1400-1500 ones.

Keep in mind too.. The time-based scoring is relative to the average time to solve the problem by previous users. So, if the problem requires a good hard think at the beginning for most users to solve it, then that's already "built in" to the timing aspect of that problem. :)

Pausing the clock at the beginning would therefore be somewhat of an empty gesture, whereas having a user option to do it would inflate the ratings of those who used it.

You know, the tactics trainer is nice. But it seems to lack consistency.

Some days, I'll hit maybe 1775. Other days...well...down 100 or more points.

Problems with a low rating may be difficult. Highly rated problems may be easy.

And, you get a puzzle right but get a heavy penalty on time...even if it didn't take all that much longer than the mean.

In short, nice puzzles but maybe these other things are a bit wacky.

The ratings for players and problems are wacky, and the way that players are paired with problems has quirks. I'd elaborate, but I'm still curious to know what triggers the "rated retest" that I see occasionally. 

The reason I'm curious about this phenomenon is that it has potential to distort ratings.

You're saying that you get the same problem twice in a row? That seems more like "bug" than "feature" to me! :)

Yes.  It's not always consecutive, though.

When my rating is below 1800 (or close to that number) this never happens.

When my rating is higher and I fail a problem that is lower (my observation) I'll get a "rated retest" a lot of the time and when I pass it, the "failed" entry is wiped out and a new "passed" note is entered in the record.

As I said, it's not always consecutive.  Sometimes I work a problem or two and then get "retested".

I could see why players would be reticent to report such a "feature" as a bug. If you want me to report this separately, I will.

Of course if there's a rated mode without timer (or my 30sec suggestion above) then different people's ratings are not comparable. For me, being not interested in comparing myself with others this wouldn't matter. Another problem is deciding what games to offer somebody with say a 30sec start delay built in, and then how to alter the games rating based on what they do... difficult! I suppose that you could find some formula...?

The way chesstempo handles it is

i) not to display a timer during the puzzle itself, which encourages you to make a move only once you think you have the solution

ii) have two separate ratings for 'blitz mode' and 'standard mode', which have shorter and longer time windows for puzzles respectively.

You can turn the visible timer-bar on/off in Settings as well.

Ratings for untimed practice is something we've discussed. We haven't ruled it out, so it might be something we introduce in the future.

You do have a choice of timed or untimed here.

At the other site, the paradigm is much more robust and the options more varied.

More I don't want to say because I am promoting nothing. And, there are things here that are complementary, which is OK.

I will add one more thought...

It seems that here the time alotted for many problems is more oriented toward blitz. I always feel pressured to hurry.

And, I say that when sometimes I can calculate the answer in 10 seconds when 50 seconds is the norm. Nonetheless, it is often also the contrary. What I am sayiong is that I often feel overly pressured for time...more than what I feel should be reasonable.

Those are my opinions. A debate against the opinions of someone else is not my intent.

I've never had a visible timer (and happy it was turned off by default, there shouldn't be hints or pressure like that). But it only makes sense that the time you take influences your rating if the goal of these puzzles is to imprint tactical patterns in your mind. Given enough time almost anyone can solve the majority of these puzzles anyways.

I stand by what I said. Where did I use the term "rated"?

Unpaid members get a lot of advertising and only three problems per day. I used to have the highest level of premium features and that included unlimited tactical training.

At the gold, where I am now, I get 25 per day. And, I can get it  timed and rated or untimed and unrated. It is worth it's weight in gold .