Strong fluctuations in tactical skills...and I still don't know exactly why

Within two weeks my TT rating fluctuated from 1457 to 1604, back to 1507 and now again 1604.

I still don't know exactly why.

I know that I will drop a lot of points if I try to to play the "obvious but wrong move", for example going for material win instead mate in two. After such blunders I have the tendency or to go on for a while playing frustrated and dropping more points, or trying to come down and calculate better. By doing so, I noted that for a while I tend to go back to the "play fast to get a lot of points"-approach, until I decide again to calculate longer.

The best result I have when I get confident enough to play fast the key moves (and the correct continuations) when I feel this are the right ones, but still taking some time to check other candidate moves. In such cases I can get a lot of point because I am able to play rather fast rather difficult positions without risking too much.

I am curious about your own experiences with TT. What do you do to stop a losing streak? Or did you begin to get better in TT after reading an article or watching a certain video? Which ones?

         I think we all share this situation concerning TT. May I suggest to you, to use your win-lost percentage as a true indication of your skill and progress,rather than just your rating. You may also check your personal graphs to see which types of tactics give you the most difficulty. TT is a wonderful teaching feature,and should be taken advantage of by players at any skill level.

I'm still new to the Tactics Trainer, but I try not to move until I believe I've found the best continuation.

Hoping to gain points on quick intuition, or moving without seeing the full continuation, kind of defeats the purpose of tactics training, in my opinion. The goal isn't to beat each puzzle, but to learn (or reinforce) certain tactical motifs.

There's nothing unusual about having your tactics rating (or even your OTB rating) fluctuate over 100 points. I've certainly done it too.

The biggest drops come when you're tired or otherwise not mentally sharp, miss a couple problems in a row, and then try to rush on the next few problems in the hopes of getting your points back quickly. If you find yourself doing that, stop and go do something else. Return to tactics training sometime when you're not feeling tired and frustrated.

Don't worry about it. Tactics trainer has little to do with real chess.

AFAIK chess.com are using positions from real games played here for the TT. I think more real than this is almost impossible :-) I think tactics is important and I agree with people saying that it is one of the most important things to improve if you want to play better chess.

   No need to destroy your equipment!  Just relax and solve the tactic.TT is not  about accumulating  rating points, its  about pattern recognition. Each tactic you solve or fail to solve enhances your chess playing skill and experience. Sorry to contradict you but TT has everything  to do with real chess.   I found "Lessons" to be very instructive as well.

For the first time I am 1700+! Rather scary how tactics is sometimes easy, almost no mistakes, and then times of chess blindness. I am approaching TT as real games, getting even a little bit nervous before starting training. But it is nice to see that I am slowly improving. I trained rather a lot with the app Chessimo, so I should be better in tactics, perhaps around 1800. The thing is that Chessimo is more about some very typical combinations, while TT is taking everything from real games. This is why sometimes when the exercise is rather tough for some people, for me they are just routine, because I spot the idea in seconds if I trained similar stuff in Chessimo. In other easier positions which were taken from real games played in chess.com, I have often problems, exactly because they are not always spectacular. This is why I like to train  here.

Besides the obvious problem with you judging chess tactics off a sample size of two problems, not all tactics are equal, some come up more often, others cost you the game, and others are just harder. These tactics are far from equal, and the idea comes up again and again. Just because you can't see a tactic come up in your games doesn't mean it isn't there. At best you can argue the tactics hit on problems that are not currently coming up in your game, but this has more to do with your games avoiding particular situations (for now) than the tactics being impractical.

As for rating changes, tactics points are quick changes from decisions made very fast, relatively speaking. Your mental state may be hampered or enhanced by how well-rested you are, maybe your mindset was simply better prepared for the tactics involved, and of course random variation for when you just happened to spot the combination and when you didn't, which happens in all rating-styled events.

Artificial? The same moves are correct/incorrect regardless of who is playing them. The fastest, (and most forcing) moves are significant because of time, which is a common feature of the game. It is a good habit to go for the win as quickly as possible and not let your opponent get away or distract you during the complications by extending the time it takes to end the game.

 Some days you will absolutely suck at chess no matter what you do. Today I apparently play like a brain dead moron so I'm done with this stupid game for a day or 2. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with this infuriating game.

I know what do you mean. I think a good method to reduce frustration is to invest more in analyses and training. I usually don't like to play blitz because there I have the tendency to skip analyses and jump to the next game. For me it is better to play Daily Chess, something like 30 to 60 games simultaneously, waiting until all games are finish and then investing enough time in analyses before the next round. I hope I can improve slowly playing like this.

Erik I share your pain! (If you are like me you will probably find out that you can't ever leave this game alone for a long time!)

Torrubirubi I do the 5 problems here religiously each day and I think it is common to have a rating that constantly fluctuates, mine is usually between 1300 and 1400. I don't think there is anything I can do to stop a losing streak though. I prefer to play the puzzles out at my desktop rather than on my phone and I cannot have any other interruptions going on in the background. I never rush them, happy with 1 point and the satisfaction of getting it right.

I have noticed that on some occasions the trainer is nice and gives me 1100 rated problems and sometimes it is horrible and gives me 1600+ rated problems. I quite like this though - I think it is realistic as in a real game situation there is a really obvious "solution" staring me in the face (lower rated puzzle) yet often there are tactics that I don't see (higher rated) that I need to be aware of. If the tactic trainer constantly feeds us problems at our own rating then this is taking away something from the standard games of chess we play. 

 

I agree, often we will deal with very complex positions demanding a high level of tactical skills in games against weak players, sometimes because we wanted to have the complex position where weaker players often blunder. I remember in some games where I had absolutely winning positions and I knew that a sacrifice would lead to mate in few moves, but I was not able to find them (in blitz), so the opponent was able to push all my figures back and win the game. The better we get in tactics, the more we aim for complex, sharp positions.  

Consistency is key, but a "brute force" approach can jumpstart your progress.  Before resetting I had done over 23k problems and did a minimum of 50 per session.  Two to three hours a day was not uncommon for months on end.  I got better, a lot better, but it didn't stick.  I couldn't maintain the training schedule because I was starting to hate chess, sigh...So too much doesn't work either (unless you're young and talented...I'm neither LOL).  So now I just work on puzzles I missed in unrated mode. Hey, it's a plan...

lack of caffeine, i recommend a quadruple shot of espresso.

 

Blitz is evil, and the source of most of my frustration. I hit 1700, then had a bad day and couldn't accept the fact that I sucked that day and plummeted to 1550. I spent weeks clawing my way back to 1700, then last night started throwing games like a noob. This time I caught myself and quit before losing 150 points again. I just got back to 1700 and I officially quit blitz until I'm 2000 daily and rapid.

Blitz is a little bit like gambling, highly addictive, and the search for the quick is similar to taking drugs. I work in a rehab and I try to motivate patients to learn and play chess, but I do not recommend them to play online - I am afraid they will just shift from one dependency to another. 

My luck is that I am a horrible blitz player, so I don't have great motivation to play blitz (I do sometimes, but usually regret after losing several games in a row).