Tactics Trainer

Is there a recipe for using the trainer? I seem to fluctuate around the same level without progressing. Is it volume, speed, studying mistakes? I can't seem to perform well under timed conditions with complex problems.

I don't know of any tricks or recipes specifically. As it is a trainer of tactics I recommend that you look for candidate moves in this order: sacrifices, checks, captures, other forcing moves, everything else. I don't think that it is something which you are likely to improve at quickly. I also fluctuate around the same level (but almost not at all) and don't show any significant improvement over time. I think that is fairly normal.

I personally train with tags off.  Seems more fun and benificial to chess sight.  But I'm sure if you played with them on you'd have a better idea what your trying to look for, thus improving your rating.

Only thing I can think of anyway.

You can have the tags showing during the puzzle??? I had better check that out...

My settings are set to show the tags. Does that really include during the puzzle? Am I really ignorant enough to play hundreds of puzzles without seeing that? I suppose I will find out for sure tomorrow.

My question pertains to the concept of a trainer. If I just learn to make faster moves and faster mistakes what's the point? If I take the time to solve them at an 80% rate I stay at the same level and I don't improve my speed. Seems like a recipe for frustration if you want to improve your training score level.

If you look at most of the titled players they have scores of less than 50% and I doubt that many of them are just out to look good on the stats. Of course though, before you go and aim to solve all the puzzles quickly and achieve ~46% you must consider two things. One: a lot more of their level of puzzles are long multi-move puzzles where you can get the answer wrong but still score 70+%, and also that they already know all/most of the paterns to look for. They are using the trainer to keep sharp, rather than learn.

To be honest though, I believe that the TT is best used for exactly that, keeping sharp. If you want to learn new patterns you should probably solve the type of puzzles you find in a newspaper that might take you 2 hours each. I believe that my 60% is too high, your 70% is WAY too high. I do not believe that you are using the TT correctly. Do them quickly and when you get one wrong, check the tags and go read up on anything you didn't know. That is probably the best way to imrpove at tactics using the TT.