Puzzles difficulty mounts at ~1600 Elo?

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Avatar of CelticJetski

Not sure if it's just me being momentarily more sloppy than usual, but it seems that as soon as I am right at the 1600 puzzle rating threshold, the puzzles become significantly more tricky.

I've been there several times—1588, 1590, 1593, 1587, and now recently 1595—then I'm faced with more problems that are difficult to calculate and seem to have several 'good' solutions while only the best one of course being the correct one.

I always end up slipping in the rankings after I reach these heights, and now I guess I have another climb ahead of me (currently at 1532 tear, my worst rating since early February).

Can anyone confirm if the puzzle difficulty really starts to ramp up at 1590-1600, or am I imagining stuff?

Cheerss

Avatar of SirKillalot2

I agree.

Avatar of Fet
Your rapid rating is 590, you are already very overrated in puzzles.
Avatar of turnoffthefaucet
They ramp up continually. 1600 puzzles are just at the outer limit of your current skill level.
Avatar of deepa_lakshmi_l

I agree

Avatar of CelticJetski
Fet wrote:
Your rapid rating is 590, you are already very overrated in puzzles.

There's a huge difference between puzzles and actual games, they are not comparable.

I'm not a good chess player by any means because I perform poorly under pressure in 1v1, and haven't had a lot of practice either. For example my opening skills are poor, particularly on how to counter properly, and almost no puzzles are about opening.

I have only played 113 games, but I did 980 puzzles.

My puzzle rating (1500-1600) is what it is. What is your point, really?

Avatar of MrChatty

The guy above is right, you just got to your personal puzzle difficulty limit

Avatar of CelticJetski
turnoffthefaucet wrote:
They ramp up continually. 1600 puzzles are just at the outer limit of your current skill level.

This seems logical, but it really is like you reach a new ladder rung at 1590-1600, where puzzles suddenly become way harder than they were before. Puzzles around say 1550, in my experience, are often very easy with solutions that I can visualize and execute in like 15 seconds, but at 1590ish I can sit and think for a minute and still make errors. The difference seems huge to me, so that's why I'm wondering the puzzle difficulty is more like a set of stairs rather than an y=x graph.

Avatar of CelticJetski
MrChatty wrote:

The guy above is right, you just got to your personal puzzle difficulty limit

Sure, but it's really like the difficulty suddenly ramps up a lot at this exact limit, rather than increasing linearly. Some seem to agree with me here, but we might be imagining things.

Avatar of MrChatty

Ok, keep monitoring the situation

Avatar of CelticJetski

Ok, so I was both being slapped with difficult puzzles and being a bit hasty. Slipped down to right below 1500. Currently being fed a stretch of very easy puzzles (compared to earlier). Here we go again I guess...

Avatar of CelticJetski

Ok, that climb took a while, but now I'm closing in on 1600 again (1590). And I only recently discovered that you can view a list of your recent puzzles and their respective Elo ratings, but they don't go very far back.

Most puzzles have been way below 1500 on this re-climb, however. More like 1200-1300 on average.

I'm not quite sure how the difficulty regresses after you fail a puzzle, but when you do, the difficulty drops significantly, and the longer your winning streak, the tougher they get. I felt quite lucky to pass this 1738, and I reckon I'm gonna lose my streak again tomorrow.

Avatar of CelticJetski
turnoffthefaucet wrote:
They ramp up continually. 1600 puzzles are just at the outer limit of your current skill level.

You were kind of correct. They ramp up continually based on your winning streak. Once you lose a puzzle, the difficulty drops quite a bit, and vice versa.