Tactics Rating

Sort:
FaceCrusher

I've started to change my mind. The way to get more points in tactics trainer is just to get better at tactics. Then you'll solve them quicker, get more points, and do the same for higher level ones, just like you have to do to get better at chess. It's annoying, but that's the way a real chess game goes. Such is life. You can make 48 moves right. You only have to make one wrong one to get mated. The point of the tool is to make you better. Not to make you feel good.  

torrubirubi
FaceCrusher wrote:
torrubirubi wrote:
Probably the idea behind it is that you should really be sure about your answer - if not you should spend more time thinking. This algorithm is preventing the guessing and rewarding the precise calculation. I like it, as there is no time limit for the exercises (different for instance from chessimo).

 

That's just it....if you do actually take your time and think it through properly, you are penalized with a worthless +1 because you didn't solve it in the 13 seconds it said you were supposed to. So you get this uncomfortable sense that you are rushed, so you try to get in something before too long goes by, but then they just take 15 pts away and it was all for nothing.

I mean I get it. Discipline, training, it's supposed to be tough and make you work hard to improve. But the ridiculous solve times and the rush forces more mistakes than you'd otherwise have. It's not about getting them right, where you could do 100 right in a row and get 100 pts, you have to blitz them, and that invites disaster. If they want to cultivate proper and good thinking, you'd want to insure a little more time. I get it that in a real game you don't have 10 minutes to figure out if a tactic is there or you lose on time. But there should be a more realistic balance I'd think.

Perhaps we should not take these points too seriously. If you know a certain motive you will see it in few seconds. If you do not know a certain and difficult motive, you first tried to solve it, spending a lot of time. You will get "only" one point, but this is a lot if you did not know the motive before, right? When you are confronted with the same motive again and again, you will be able to solve it quickly. In any case, you are learning. The thing is that in tactics you have the huge advantage that you know that you have a combination in the position. In the games, you will not have something like this. If you will spend a lot of time trying to find a forced win in every complex position, you will probably lose. What I want to say is that it is a great thing to make you lose 15 points if you are just lazy to think more carefully about the combination or trying to guess how to play. Playing a wrong combination in a match will probably mean that you lose the game. 

torrubirubi
lfPatriotGames wrote:
FaceCrusher wrote:

There is a sense in which it is demoralizing to work getting 8-9 in a row right over the course of a while, only to have it all destroyed with one wrong answer, wiping out all of your progress and then some. You crawl along at +1 +1+1+1+1+1+1+1 forever, then get one wrong, and the goddamn walls come crashing down, like -20, and your whole session is for nothing. 

It's probably only demoralizing  if a high rating is your goal. In your example how can 9 out of 10 right be demoraizing? The game of chess is a lot like what you describe. You can make 9 really good moves in a row, but the tenth move, if it's bad enough, will wipe out all your progress and lose the game.

I agree! We should not forget that the greatest reward we have is not "a lot of points in the chess.com tactics rating", but to learn new chess patterns.