Tactics Trainer

This is probably a somewhat silly request or rather an impossible one, but that hasnt stopped me before heh ;)

Im loving the Tactics Trainer!

One minor frustration is that when a problem comes up with seconds or a minute or so to solve, one first has no context to the position.. so normally one spends time looking for the mate (most problems here seem to be mates) but quite a lot are simply positional moves or a piece capture. It would be really handy if there was a title that advised ye of the context briefly. sometimes it is not at all obvious. eg.

"Find the Mate"

"Win Material"

"Find Stalemate"

"Find the best position"

etc

Now i know we could just say that part of the problem is seeing what the problem actually is :P That, impo, isnt really what to learn though, as when playing a game one would always know what the context is.

I know there are so many thousands of problems already out there, but perhaps a field can be added for new problems being added so that the creator can add in a hint as to if it is a mate etc as suggested above.

My one other minor frustration is that many seem to require a move in tooo short a time period. Surely speed shouldnt be the main issue (i always feel rushed heh and loose many for that reason. my fault im sure) but being able to visualise the solution. Then again i guess it is better training fer OTB games.

All good anyway, cheers :)

Good idea, silent, and fair enough aye. As to it being more realistic im unsure though.. more realistic to what? Any game i have played i always play it from the start so i know what has been happening, that is what i meant by knowing the context of the position.

If most people think like ye though (and im not knocking that way of thinking at all ;) then i would suggest my idea is definately not a good one and should be disregarded as a time waster fer staff.

When these games were played originally the player would have spent a long time posistioning the pieces and figuring out whether the tactic works or not.

Having 79 secs or so to figure out whats going on and what you need to do is incredibly hard. However I have started to recognise some of the positions coming up more than once and remembered how to solve them, i've also started to recognise some of the themes of the puzzles so maybe the tactic trainer is working in my case, although, my points don't seem to be rising much, then again there not dropping so thats ok.

I have two suggestions therefore either (1) as pistoleer says tell us the context and keep the time the same or (2) increase the time but don't tell us the context.

But i do love the tactics trainer all the same. I think i now spend more time on that than playing an actual chess game. Its far too adictive.

i'll tell you why we aren't going to do this: 

#1 - everyone is at the same disadvantage. everyone has to spend the same amount of time getting familiar with the position. if some people get the hint, and some don't, then you DO have a disadvantage.  

#2 - the times taken are averages for the solving time. you aren't working against some arbitrary number we assign, you are working against the average tactics solver.

i understand the motivation, but we won't. if you want more structured tactics, i recommend chess mentor :)

Cheers Erik that makes sense.  Ta again fer listening and commentin :)

That is interesting hearing that we are working against the average time...I assume when a new problem is added there is an arbitary length of time but as people complete it, that time changes to the average..?  A few problems i have seen have say 800 seconds(13 mins) perhaps that is a starting point before the average kicks in, as it only took maybe say 30 seconds to work out.

Heh yeah Zanmi im with ye on using it so much now heh. Fun and a quick way to spend some time while learning patterns as well.

That will explain why for some I have 7 or 8 minutes, but it only takes 30 seconds :-)

Come in very andy that would.