A little clarification. You say advance, but you are referring to a percentage of pass/fail? What did you have in mind? Most people use their "adaptive" rating as a measure of their success at trainer, but it seems you want your pass percentage to go up?
Tactics Trainer
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My strategy with tactics trainer has been to focus more on percentage correct, and less (or not at all) on my TT rating. I used to play these puzzles as fast as possible, jumping on the first line that looked promising. When I was right, I got a megaboost to my rating, but I was wrong more than 50% of the time. My TT rating got over 2200, but my % correct kept dropping. The trouble with this approach is that it doesn't help you in OTB play, where you never know if there is a good tactic available. You surely aren't going to try a queen sack because you see a followup that might cause your opponent some problems.
Now I spend more time (often much more) on each TT puzzle, and really try to calculate all the way to the end before I play the first move. My TT rating really took a hit at first, but my % correct keeps climbing. I will very often get the puzzle right, but still lose rating points as I get the minimum 20% rating score. This has certainly helped my calculating ability, and I'm convinced this is the way to go....
The Tactics Trainer seems to expose you to a lot of tactical patterns in a short time, but it doesn't seem to give you a sense that these patterns work in some positions but not in others. For example, with the Greek Gift sacrifice it is not enough to remember the pattern, you need to know when it works and when it doesn't. And the conditions of the TT do not faithfully simulate a real game, in a real game you are not told in advance that there is a tactics or that it will work, and you are not being rated on how fast you can make a guess, and you don't lose if you find mate in 3 instead of mate in 2. It's still pretty useful as an exercise but I wouldn't pay much attention to the rating. It's supposed to help you in competition, not to be in itself an area of competition.
I'd see it as more of a tool to improve board vision, calculation skills and chunk patterns into your head. Saves you a bunch of time in real games where you tend to be more accurate when your brain is "pattern matching" rather than calculating.
jjeffrey wrote:
My strategy with tactics trainer has been to focus more on percentage correct, and less (or not at all) on my TT rating. I used to play these puzzles as fast as possible, jumping on the first line that looked promising. When I was right, I got a megaboost to my rating, but I was wrong more than 50% of the time. My TT rating got over 2200, but my % correct kept dropping. The trouble with this approach is that it doesn't help you in OTB play, where you never know if there is a good tactic available. You surely aren't going to try a queen sack because you see a followup that might cause your opponent some problems.
Now I spend more time (often much more) on each TT puzzle, and really try to calculate all the way to the end before I play the first move. My TT rating really took a hit at first, but my % correct keeps climbing. I will very often get the puzzle right, but still lose rating points as I get the minimum 20% rating score. This has certainly helped my calculating ability, and I'm convinced this is the way to go....
That is the main reason that I stopped using Tactics Trainer and got Chessimo. One of my problems is making moves that are too hasty. and if you don't do that in tactics trainer, your rating drops. With Chessimo, I can all the time I want and really think about why one move is better than another.
I mainly use TT as a bit of relaxation. Usually if I don't know what's going on when the average time has elapsed, I just guess. It's a rare problem that I know the concept is there and I think for longer until I find it.
This is reflected in my meagre 47% pass rate.
I see I'm not the only one annoyed with the way tactics trainer works. I think of the timer as "video game mode" because you have to go lightning fast to earn rating points. This requires moving impulsively without taking time to think things out. Unfortunately, if you're getting most problems wrong you are not learning!
IMO, it is critical to identify the key points of why the position works, and just as importantly, changes that would keep it from working in a real game. Anyone who has played much chess knows that changing the position of a single piece slightly can totally change the way a position is played.
Many of the problems in tactics trainer have comments following which say something like "I got this right but I don't know why. Can someone tell me what is going on here?" Does anyone really believe this poor soul is improving his chess game, just because he accidently made the right moves?
I regularly see games where players lose because they attempt to use a tactic without properly understanding it. It LOOKS kinda like something they recently saw so they try it without calculating it out, only to discover they really didn't understand it at all!
The best way to do these is to study them until you understand the position, and know WHY you are making the correct moves. This is slow going at first, but eventually you'll be able to do these problems fast while getting them right, and you'll immediately notice when a similiar position pops up with critical position differences.
By the way, tactics trainer has a practice mode which lets you work the problems without worrying about time. When in practice mode you can also specify the rating range of problems you'd like to work, so you can avoid most of the tactics that are way too easy or totally beyond your current playing level. Practice mode doesn't create statistics but you can switch to timed mode every now and then just to see how much you've improved.
How do you advance in tactics trainer? I am at 57.5% completion, but I seem to be stuck at that level. I have spent many hours solving problems and still no advancement. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.