Online Chess ratings vs. Tactics Trainer ratings

I don't have an answer to your question, but that won't stop me from speculating. In my view there are at least several possibilities, of which I'll enumerate three: a) the Tactics Trainer is simply and naively incorrect and generates a higher than appropriate rating, b) the Tactics Trainer is intentionally designed to overrate our performance to make us feel better about ourselves, and c) Tactics Trainer results are skewed by the fact that we KNOW there is a tactic present and therefore we find the tactic more easily than we would if we were simply playing a game and had to find it over the board.

I'd love to know the answer to your question. But I have the same observation: my Tactics Trainer rating is 200+ points higher than my Live Chess ratings. However, it's not far from my Online Chess rating ... so, that might be a nugget of info there.

Rating

my cfc rating is 1378 :/

My Tactics trainer is just now going over 1400 while my online chess rating is 1650 or so. 

Chess.com staff might be able to do a data summary. It would be really interesting.

I'm the opposite. My tactics trainer is only 1260, but my online chess rating is 1522

my tactics trainer rating is 2460. my online rating was 1800 before i dropped 400 points from three tournament withdrawls

Likewise, according to my Tactics Trainer rating, I should be an IM (2400+). My Online Chess rating and my "real world" USCF rating, places me in the lower end of Class A (~1850). So either:

1. I am truly a tactical wizard who is only suffering in the class pool because my opening prep sucks and I have the positional understanding of a rock.

or

2. The Tactics Trainer rating is greatly inflated in comparison to the regular ratings based on playing chess with other people.

Common sense tells me the answer is 2, but my ego would rather believe 1.

Of course the unstated third option is that the Tactics Trainer rating is greatly inflated AND I have the positional understanding of a rock. But I really don't want to dwell on that possibility.

young/faster brains will have a higher tactics trainer ratings than online ratings.

older/slower brains will be having lower tactics trainer ratings than online ratings.

That's something you have to back up with some statistics if you want someone to take that seriously.

On topic, The tactics trainer on chess.com seems to be pretty lenient with the ratings, on most other tactics sites I'm about 150-200 below what I usually am on chess.com tactics trainer.

I am approximately 600 points higher rated on chess.com than, for instance, Chess Tactics Server.

Chess.com rating: 1904

Tactics trainer rating: ~2333

On the plus side, it doesn't say if it's "white to play and draw" or "white to play and win". And it doesn't give the expected number of moves, which can affect results as well.

I was also able to achieve my admittedly stratospheric tactics trainer rating through luck and knowing when I should stop. :-)

Ratings are nice. Ratings are useful. Still BCF ratings are not equivalent to ELO or any other rating. The same holds true for other rating systems. Is there a conversion factor? Also, a rating is a fixed number representing a moving and elusive target. Never trust a rating to be dead-on.

Live chess rating: 1705

Tactics Trainer rating: 2155

D:

The tactics trainer rating is probably just for tactics.

hey! i resemble that 2nd remark. ;-) my *rated* tactics score is much lower than  my correspondence score. my *unrated* score is lower, but not as bad. i can complete most tactics puzzles at my elo and slightly higher, but it takes me a while. it's hard for me to focus well, so correspondence chess is perfect for me.

I guess I'm a young fast mind haha.