Why chess .com puzzles ar so ez
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Many users find the puzzles on Chess.com easy at first, but this is by design. Puzzle difficulty is dynamically adjusted based on your puzzle rating. When you're just starting out or have a lower puzzle rating, the system presents simpler tactics—such as basic forks, pins, or checkmates in one or two moves—to match your level and help you improve progressively.
Because your puzzle rating is so low.
Aug 8, 2025
0
#27
Avandhar wrote:
The issue isn’t that puzzles themselves are easier now, but that it’s easier to gain rating from them. The lowest possible gain for solving a puzzle is +5 points. For higher-rated puzzles, the gain can be more depending on how quickly you solve them, but regardless of the puzzle, you're guaranteed at least +5 when you get it right.
This creates a problem: if your goal is simply to increase your puzzle rating, the most effective strategy is to stick with the default difficulty level, which now provides relatively easy puzzles. My puzzle rating is currently around 3000, yet most puzzles I receive at the standard setting are rated around 1600 which is close to my rapid rating. At that difficulty, especially with unlimited time to think, I can almost always find the correct move.
Right now, I’m on a streak of over 20 correct puzzles in a row. Let’s say I solve 19 out of every 20 puzzles correctly, and the one I get wrong costs me 20 points. That means for every 20 puzzles, I gain about 95 points and lose 20, for a net gain of +75. Since the puzzle difficulty doesn’t seem to adjust based on puzzle rating, I could theoretically keep doing this indefinitely and push my rating as high as I want.
Does that make sense? Probably not, but if the goal was to make puzzle ratings more reflective of actual chess skill, this system seems to do the opposite.
There are still some changes coming to the puzzle system. A couple of things about the change are:
Over time, the current puzzle rating algorithm created highly inflated puzzle ratings for our members — and consequent inaccurate estimates of a puzzle difficulty.
- Provide a more meaningful rating which correlates more closely to player’s Blitz and Rapid ratings.
My guess is that once everything else is s rolled out, staff may revisit the +5 minimum if it causes to much inflation.
Aug 8, 2025
0
#28
Martin_Stahl wrote:
Avandhar wrote:
Cut away
There are still some changes coming to the puzzle system. A couple of things about the change are:
Over time, the current puzzle rating algorithm created highly inflated puzzle ratings for our members — and consequent inaccurate estimates of a puzzle difficulty.
- Provide a more meaningful rating which correlates more closely to player’s Blitz and Rapid ratings.
My guess is that once everything else s rolled out, staff may revisit the +5 minimum if it causes to much inflation.
Yes. I think there is only two options. Either they need to lower the +5 minimum or increase the difficulty of the puzzles at any given level (on standard setting) that give the corresponding value.
The issue isn’t that puzzles themselves are easier now, but that it’s easier to gain rating from them. The lowest possible gain for solving a puzzle is +5 points. For higher-rated puzzles, the gain can be more depending on how quickly you solve them, but regardless of the puzzle, you're guaranteed at least +5 when you get it right.
This creates a problem: if your goal is simply to increase your puzzle rating, the most effective strategy is to stick with the default difficulty level, which now provides relatively easy puzzles. My puzzle rating is currently around 3000, yet most puzzles I receive at the standard setting are rated around 1600 which is close to my rapid rating. At that difficulty, especially with unlimited time to think, I can almost always find the correct move.
Right now, I’m on a streak of over 20 correct puzzles in a row. Let’s say I solve 19 out of every 20 puzzles correctly, and the one I get wrong costs me 20 points. That means for every 20 puzzles, I gain about 95 points and lose 20, for a net gain of +75. Since the puzzle difficulty doesn’t seem to adjust based on puzzle rating, I could theoretically keep doing this indefinitely and push my rating as high as I want.
Does that make sense? Probably not, but if the goal was to make puzzle ratings more reflective of actual chess skill, this system seems to do the opposite.