Why is there time a time component in Tactics Trainer?

The object should be to solve the puzzle on the first try. If it takes you all day, so what? Adding bonus points for speed is counterproductive IMO.

I wholeheartedly agree.  I am not much interested in blitz.  I want to learn to think WELL rather than fast.  My other complaint is that you get no points for the second best solution.  If I find a mate in 5 my answer is wrong if there is a mate in 3.  This is a dumb way to score tactics.

I'll chime in agreeing as well.  I don't try to solve puzzles in less than a minute in my own games.  Why should I have have to solve theirs quickly?  I don't play much blitz anymore anyway.  The mind gets slower with age.

I half way agree.

 

I did my tactics from books and CT ART. The benefit there is they can be grouped by theme, and are (usually) high quality vs some tactics you get online that aren't very helpful for various reasons.

BUT

If you do like I did and spend 30+ minutes on a single puzzle, then you're not doing tactics training anymore. It's good training, and I recommend it, but you're building up your ability to calculate, not tactics.

For tactics if you can't solve it in ~10 minutes then you need to give up and instead spend time going over the solution and trying to understand the themes or mechanisms you missed.

 

So do I think the chess.com timer is good? I think there are pros and cons. If they give you something like doubled the average time to solve it with no penalty + never a penalty for solving in less than 60 seconds, then I'd have no complaints. (Maybe that's how it really is? But I doubt it.)

I wholeheartedly agree. So what if it takes you forever to solve it? Solving it is what matters, right?

 

I explained why it matters, from experience 

i agree with the horse; spending a lot of time is a calculation drill; tactics trainer is a pattern recognition drill

im david pruess has a great video series on tactics training both here and on his you tube channel
he recommends not spending more than 30 seconds (definitely not more than a minute) on a puzzle; then look at the answer on the analysis board going through the moves 3 times and then visualizing the moves 3 more times then on to the next puzzle

a tactics session should only consist of 3 or so puzzles which stump you
he also recommends training in unrated mode so you can spend some time at each level and then- after you are getting most puzzles quickly and correctly - moving up in difficulty

after spending some time training on a tactical book i am beginning to see the wisdom with im pruess’s method; it is not about calculating the answer(there is a time and place for that) but building up the patterns and then unconsciously calling upon these “chunks” almost instantly with perhaps a quick double check

to each his own

Because once you fail to solve it in 5-10 minutes you're reduced to randomly calculating lines in the hopes that you stumble upon something that works therefore it's calculation practice.

And if you spend 30 minutes on a puzzle, you're likely doing 8 or fewer puzzles a day... which is a very slow way to acquire tactical patterns, thus it's primarily calculation with some incidental tactical learning on the side.

I'm not saying chess.com is perfect, and I don't know exactly how their timer works, but solving puzzles without giving yourself any kind of time limit is not great for tactics. I know this, because I've done this... but is is great for calculation, and I recommend this sort of exercise.

Also

if you make it a habit of calculating on one position until you're 100% satisfied or 100% exhausted it's going to hurt you in a real OTB tournament game where you have to know how to make efficient calculation and when to cut your losses and just make a move.

 

Training should be tailored towards performance. So in general you shouldn't spend more time on a puzzle than you would in a critical position for an OTB game.

Before computers existed, a training activity for students was to set a chess clock for some time, like 15 minutes, and the coach would give 5 positions. The positions could be very hard or very easy, from tactics to quiet positional moves to endgames etc. and the positions had no hints for which you would need to spend the most time.

You have 15 minutes for all 5, and solving one correctly added a few minutes and solving incorrectly did nothing (or took away time, I don't quite remember).

 

The point is you had to learn how to budget your time, and choose which positions were critical, just like a real game.

Spending 10 minutes on one position is not fast. A game played at this pace would last over 10 hours.

The world chess championship will be played at the rate of ~3 minutes per move on average.

The players have to budget their time wisely.

What level of tactics puzzles can be solved in 30 secs? May be 1000-1400 rated puzzles?

 

I usually need 2-10 mins to solve 2000-2800 rated puzzles. Or may be I am too slow.

The faster you are able to solve simple problems, the faster you'll be able to solve more complex problems, since the more complex problems contain layers of the simpler problems all put together.

If you're at the rating where it should take you about a minute to see that you can set up a simple fork in 1-2 moves, then why should you get points for taking 5-10 minutes (or more) to solve it?  On the other hand, if you're able to solve it in much less than a minute, then why shouldn't you get much more points?  Clearly, then, you've mastered that tactic, are probably under-rated, and are ready to see that tactic show up (possibly only as a potential threat) in more complex problems.  Having a timer helps you to get to that point more quickly.

If you need to take your time to solve it, then take that time!  You're not losing points as long as you solve it.  But if you solve it quickly, why do you want to stay at the point where you're just being shown stuff you've already mastered?  Get your extra points and get to where you're solving problems that are an actual challenge.

And let's say, at some point during a game, you have a half-hour of time left.  Do you want to spend 10+ minutes searching for a tactic that may not be there?  Or would you rather be able to recognize that there are no immediate tactics within 2 minutes and then be able to spend some extra time working out the positional aspects of the game?

Being able to solve tactics fast isn't just good for blitz chess.  It's good for slow chess, too.

Yeah, and different training techniques will strengthen different things.

Is it good to spend as long as you want on a puzzle? Sure. I've done a whole tactics book like that.

good point #18 and im pruess makes that point- i think he is referring to puzzles up to 2000 but the bulk of it is for 1200-1900

And I gave the answer: because if the point is learning tactics you use a timer. Not necessarily chess.com's, but some kind of time restriction.

If the point is to strengthen your ability to calculate, which is obviously important, then spend as long as you want.

 

At a low level sure.

In fact to a beginner tactics is 100% calculation.

But as you learn patterns, your long term memory and calculation complement each other.

That's how in the past humans were beating engines that calculated millions of positions per second.

And look, I'm not recommending chess.com's TT.

I recommend getting a book and even setting up the position on a board instead of solving from a diagram