You can often find alternative solutions but they usually take an extra move or two. This of course seems silly when you lose points, but they want you to be super accurate. There are also problems where you could grab a major piece, even the Q, but there is a mate somewhere in the murky future that they want you to find. And of course again most of us would go for the material rather than rely on possibly faulty calculation all the way to mate. And then every once in a long while there really is a problem that's simply wrong. I've never actually found one but others have.
Tactics Trainer Always Right?
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The answer to this question(by the OP) in this situation, is an undoubted yes, the answer is yes.
I use the tt regularly which means I've seen a lot of puzzles. In all that time I found one bad one that was in error. It was an obvious error. I'm quite certain it was not me goofing up. I didn't know how to identify it to report it.
I don't know the number of the puzzle, but on the analysis board it had a Knight moving from f8 to d1 in one move. Could be an error.
Mar 17, 2015
0
#7
OK, here is one I don't understand at all.
http://www.chess.com/tactics/?id=48518&practice=1
Why block the check with Be5? All that accomplishes is loss of the bishop. Why not Kh7? With Kh7, there is no way for white to place the black king in check again on white's next move.....white could do Nf6 for another check but that would just throw the white knight away with Rxf6
If black would instead go for Kg8 or Kh7, white could play Nf6, forking the queen and king. Then, black would be down a rook(5 points), instead of the bishop(3 points). This puzzle isn't a combination that 'leads to a win', it's just a combination that 'wins a piece'(for white).
Mar 17, 2015
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#9
OK, now I see it. I now just realized that Nf6 is covered by white's queen, meaning Rxf6 is followed by Qxf6 and check. Live and learn. Thanks.
No.
in some tactics, you have to find the mate in 3, and if you find the mate in 4 youre wrong.
who cares, a mate is a mate especially when its a forcing sequence and opponent cant do a thing about it.
Mar 17, 2015
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#11
Hayabusa....you certainly make a fair point. I'm quite open to the idea that I'm just not yet savvy enough to figure out what the tactics trainer is trying to teach me. I do also feel that a fair counter to your statement is to make the two following points:
1. How long does it take to elevate one's tactical rating to 2100? I've been doing 5 tactical sessions per day for a few weeks and am raising my tactical rating perhaps 20-30 points per day. It's possible I haven't yet been on the site long enough to elevate my tactical rating to my actual tactical awareness...perhaps not likely....but possible.
2. Being new to the site, I have no way of knowing how good (or bad) the tactical trainer is. Pehaps it sucks and I really do know more at a rating of 900 than the trainer can teach me.....evidence to the contrary based on the feedback from the others in this thread. But asking the question is how I figured out the tactical trainer is pretty good and I still suck. 
One day at a time. Maybe in a few years I'll be up there at the 2100 level. 
live2beoutside wrote:
Hayabusa....you certainly make a fair point.
Agh, don't listen to him. It's obvious you sincerely thought the TT was wrong, and it's normal to 'see it like that'. There's no need to point fingers at lower level players, and act all 'superior'. It's not like there isn't always some 7 year old somewhere, who is like a 2100.
The best part of your situation, is that you are fascinated with the tactics trainer. I'd suggest sticking with 'that'. I see a lot of players wanting books and stuff like that, while that is all good, your tactics trainer is gonna be your real friend at 'getting sharper'(for you).
Don't play short games(just here and there for fun). Get your online chess(correspondence) game going, I'd say do 3 days a move, and take your time before you move(I'd start with no more than 3 games at a time, so you can REALLY focus). Set up a chess board, and look through the combos and such before you move. Also, print out some chess notation pages, like used in a tournament. If you can't, just buy a notation book, or just draw some lines on a piece of paper and write down the move before you submit your move. Do it EVERY time before you move. really take your time.
Later, you can then speed this process up(minus the notation), for like 10 minute and 2/1 minute games. And back and forth. Learn REALLY SLOW, and then speed it up. And KEEP USING THAT TACTICS TRAINER!!! haha like, for the rest of your life, just one or two a day(on a bad day). Don't get 'caught up' in advancing your TT score, that's a bad mindset, just focus on 'learning' the combos, you'll get better.
There is a lot of strategy in chess also, but, for the moment(like a month or so), just focus on your daily TT and your correspondence games.
live2beoutside wrote:
Am I still too much of a novice to see the better solution or have I reached a piont where I can see an alternate solution not offered by the tactics trainer
Well that can easily be settled by checking your rating, just a sec....
oh.
Mar 18, 2015
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#14
mosai wrote:
live2beoutside wrote:
Am I still too much of a novice to see the better solution or have I reached a piont where I can see an alternate solution not offered by the tactics trainer
Well that can easily be settled by checking your rating, just a sec....
oh.
No reason to be a jerk. How many weeks did it take for you to get your rating to where it is? Honest question......I'd love an answer.
Oh are we measuring dicks now?
This egotistical attitude is exactly your problem.
Mar 18, 2015
0
#16
No, my problem is that you seem to be intent on being a jacks$$ and picking a fight rather than offering an opinion worth reading to what was intended to be an honest question.. Sheesh.....
One thing I've noticed about TT is that you can spend a long time getting the right solution and still get a negative score. This seems to encourage a gambling intuitive approach at times. We know there are times when we are short of time, and have to take a gues BUT most of the time, positions with a suggestive tactical solution - "we are all developed", in normal OTB timed games, allow for a considered analysis.
Ziggy_Zugzwang wrote:
One thing I've noticed about TT is that you can spend a long time getting the right solution and still get a negative score. This seems to encourage a gambling intuitive approach at times. We know there are times when we are short of time, and have to take a gues BUT most of the time, positions with a suggestive tactical solution - "we are all developed", in normal OTB timed games, allow for a considered analysis.
The timer is 'built in' to the system, to create a scoring system. I think the TT's scoring system is fairly accurate to one's overall 'score', simply because it builds a proper system of 'where' all the chess.com players are 'at'.
Without the timer, a player could simply 'take all day' to figure out the puzzles(or use an engine), and drive their TT score up over 2000 PRETTY easily.
I've gotten better at the TT by retrying failures over and over until I figure them out rather than just hitting the solution tab. It helped me be less obsessed with the score and more into learning the tactics, which then has been causing my score to nudge itself upwards.
BigKingBud wrote:
If black would instead go for Kg8 or Kh7, white could play Nf6, forking the queen and king. Then, black would be down a rook(5 points), instead of the bishop(3 points). This puzzle isn't a combination that 'leads to a win', it's just a combination that 'wins a piece'(for white).
Not quite. White actually gets mated in a continuation like 2... Kh7 3. Nf6+? Rxf6 4. Qxf6 Qh1+ etc. Instead, if you look at the analysis you'll see that Kh7 is answered by 3. Rxf3 eliminating the mate and winning a piece. I doubt that very few 900 rated solvers understand the idea though which makes this a bad problem.
Be5 is probably some computer move and maybe it's a better way to give up the piece but as I said the whole puzzle is of a very questionable value.
I've been on the site for about three months now. I've been running through five tactics trainer sessions most every day since then and have learned a lot (my rating is up about 200 points over that time period). However, I seem to be reaching a level of understanding of the game to where I don't always agree with the solution presented by the TT. Am I still too much of a novice to see the better solution or have I reached a piont where I can see an alternate solution not offered by the tactics trainer. What are others' experiences with the TT solutions? Do you always agree with them or are they sometimes not the only good alternative?