Puzzle Rush Survival improvement recommendation/request?

Hello community,

first I'd like to point out that I'm in no way qualified or in any position to call for improvements as I'm still a beginner. However what I'm asking the more experienced professionals to take a look into for confirmation is the following: I've played puzzle rush survival several times now and what i noticed (if I'm not wrong) there have been cases where i found a checkmate solution however my solution deviated from the (only programmed correct solution) of the puzzle so it was rejected and considered blunder despite it still being another possible solution. Which leads me to the conclusion sometimes there may be more than one possible solutions but only finding the correct solution will be accepted. Maybe the professionals could take a look into this to confirm it? If that would be the case maybe could that be corrected? That would be nice as it sure can be frustrating each time you get that blunder (seemingly for no reason) especially when you've come so far in the process. Sometimes when that happened i was so frustrated that i just didn't care for the rest of the puzzle anymore, lost motivation to continue, got careless on purpose and blundered the other two just to end it quicker and start a new one.

Another possible improvement request: Sometimes, some puzzles just don't seem clear (whether it's about checks, captures or attacks). Sometimes it is clear that it's about captures but then it is not clear which of the possible captures is the right one. Then you choose one, and it's blunder. Then you check the solution and you don't see how that preferred capture made any more sense or improved your position more than the one you chose. Maybe some of the puzzles could be made a little more clear that would be nice.

There are very few tactics that have more than one possible solution. If you think you found one, you should load it in analysis and see if you're correct. Most of the time you'll find that your idea has a refutation. If not, and there really is another solution, the tactic can be reported. https://support.chess.com/article/1223-how-do-i-report-a-bad-puzzle

The analysis will also show you the best lines.

quote ---- The analysis will also show you the best lines-------

That is the key thing for me. Even if I solve a puzzle correctly, if anything is not totally clear, I run it through analysis. Also don't forget that puzzles are to be solved with perfect play. (least amount of moves/larger material gain)

First of all, thanks everyone for replying! You mean building up a certain scenario yourself in the category "learning"->"analysis", determining whether black or white is next move and then running the analysis to see the best moves? Yeah i've just tried it out myself what you said. Though (ideally) i guess it shouldn't be done "during" puzzle rush sessions simultaneously on another device (or generally using stockfish in any way) but rather after you're done with puzzle rush otherwise it could be considered as cheating i guess? That way you could theoretically get up to 1000 puzzles. Or maybe not? Then again I don't know what chess.com's procedure of confirming records looks like. I'm not encouraging anyone to do it nor am I implying anyone has ever done it. Just wondering whether what you said could be possible to get away with? Like I said, i don't know how chess.com verifies records. Even if it was possible to do it and get away with it, i still wouldn't do it, i couldn't be proud of myself with such a record. Such a record would have no value to me.

Unfortunately I don't remember which puzzles those were and didn't keep record so i can't build them in the analysis.

Yeah, I'm suggesting after the session to see what the right lines were and whether or not you missed an idea or there may actually be a bad puzzle.

Thanks, that could explain why my solution might have been rejected even if it were correct, because it wasn't perfect (least amount of moves/largest material gain) like you said.

One thing worth mentioning though that seems not quite clear to me: i read somewhere someone saying after about 120 puzzles they just keep repeating so from that point on it's not so much about tactics but rather memory. However iirc somewhere on chess.com i read there are more than 700 thousand puzzles on chess.com in total. With such a huge number it just seems unlikely to me that they already start repeating after just 120 puzzles. Unless I'm missing something and survival mode doesn't use all of the 700-something-thousand puzzles available (i mean the whole pool).

Also, what i noticed when doing puzzle rush, sometimes the 12th puzzle with a rating of ~900 can be more difficult than the 30th puzzle with a rating of 1600-1700. Some sessions seem easier, some harder. Apparently each time you play puzzle rush the puzzles come from different pools with different difficulty levels. Like, one 1600 rated puzzle coming from a harder pool can be more difficult than another 1600 rated puzzle coming from an easier pool. So apparently it's not so much about "difficulty ratings" but rather depending on which pool one puzzle comes from (which unfortunately cannot be seen and is invisible to us, all we see is the rating).

Somewhere in another topic i already read that apparently the puzzles for puzzle rush 5 min. come from a harder pool than 3 min. rush. That's why puzzles for 5 min. are harder than 3 min. According to that, survival must be even more difficult than 5 min. with puzzles coming from an even harder pool. Or another option could be that in survival the puzzles are mixed (coming from different pools ranging from easy to hard).

I know this topic seems outdated by now but since after all this topic is about puzzle rush survival, I'm gonna post that issue here aswell: my current best for survival is still 40 (gotten 2x) (unfortunately) which i had already gotten on my 14th! attempt. Shortly after that i got a streak record of 37 but sadly it didn't last long and i only tied my record and got 40 a second time. Since then, i've done over 100 attempts and still at 40 (the main factor for driving the attempts up is because i always tend to blunder the other two on purpose after i blunder the first one, and then start a new session, mainly because getting it wrong bothers me so much that i wanna know the solution asap and don't care to continue anymore). One major reason for me being stuck still remains that some puzzles are just not clear enough.

However the biggest issue that bothers me: I always play puzzle rush survival on my phone. Recently i got 37 with a streak of 33. Right after that i got a streak of 31, had gotten 32 and was still not finished with that session, i still had only 1 blundered and 2 left. So i was still not done. However, i paused the chess.com app on my phone. Some time later i decided to continue with my session. However the chess.com app restarted randomly and I lost my progress of 32. That really frustrated me. This really needs to be fixed chess.com! That should never happen, losing your survival progress just because the app randomly decides to restart...

To add, I have come across a very minority number of puzzles on this site (and on another puzzle site) are those involving king and rook versus king only, with nothing else on the board. Anything else apart from the chosen line would lead to "50-move rule", so the most optimal moves have to be played (although I do find it awkward to arrive near the 50-move rule for most rational players in such endgames).

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Some moves might win, but not be the best. At higher rating levels, there are fewer (if any) puzzles with multiple winning lines.

Yeah, finding a bad puzzle is probably highly unlikely, it's more likely that most of the time my idea just has a refutation. Recently i reported an allegedly "bad" puzzle and commented my solution on that puzzle (that puzzle: https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/1319769), then a few minutes later studied that puzzle again a bit more just to find out that my idea had a refutation (an awkward one, where i had somehow ignored/forgotten a single pawn, that pawn ruined my whole solution). But it was too late. Edit: a few days later looked at that puzzle again. No it wouldn't have been perfect at all! Because it wasn't just the pawn!.. What i missed back then: Once the move Bc4 takes place that releases/or "frees" the other rook... Which... just makes it even more awkward for me that i didn't see that... Apparently there's a reason why they say beginners need to master the board/to master peripheral vision... Also that's why you should take time with your puzzles, not hurry, not play while you're on the move/in places with lots of distraction or do puzzles late night when you're tired, not in your prime/peak form anymore and been awake for a long time!

Also btw, I'm guessing those puzzle numbers (1319769) etc. could stand for the order a certain puzzle was made? E. g. puzzle number 1002, puzzle number 1003 etc. So that means there could be even way more puzzles than the 700 thousand i mentioned earlier above. According to those numbers there could be at least way more than 1 Million puzzles. If that were the case and if all of them (the whole pool) are used in puzzle rush survival randomly, good luck to anyone trying to memorize them...