Tactics Scoring System is Frustrating

I cannot understand why one gets one point for solving a three or four move tactic and then loses (on average) nine to ten points for getting a similar tactic wrong. I don't care about the points, but there's an annoying lack of logic in how the tactical exercises are scored. A tactic that fewer than half of all players get correctly gains a single point; a similar tactic when missed deducts ten points. What is the logic of scoring these exercises? It's frustrating!

[removed -- MOD]

I think thats a violation of the site tos.  Now to see how long it lasts before being removed.

If you want more of those precious tactics points then solve them quciker.  

Thanks for all the nasty replies! What a great community of chess lovers.  Last time I ask a question on this site.

I have seen the Tactics Trainer get stuck giving out 1 point before, even when solving quickly enough that it should give more. If you are on Android, clearing the cache may help with that.

@nmgo 

(1) Not everyone is that nasty - but people in these forums seem to react badly to a few certain things, including ratings complaints. It would have been much worse if you asked how fast you could become a grandmaster.

(2) As for the tactics, the reason you only get +1 per correct tactic, for some of the tactics, is because you're doing them slowly. Chess tactics are TIMED - the longer you take, the fewer points you'll receive for any correct or part-correct solution. 

(3) Your tactics history is open to the public - notice that you've receive +7 for a tactic you solved relatively quickly, but only +2 and +1 for those you've spent longer on.

Hope this helps! 

That won't be necessary for the OP - he's just not aware that tactics are timed. You can see this from his tactical history. 

You're better of just ignoring or even blocking people like @Diakonia. As they say, the barking of a dog does not disturb the man on a camel.

I thought about checking but decided to offer a that suggestion, just in case 

Ok, can anyone tell me what is quick enough? Like, less than 10 seconds? Less than 30?

Depends on a number of different factors but primarily it is based on the average time it has historically taken to solve the tactic. That now gets modified some based on some other factors, such as the difference in rating between your current rating and the tactic rating.

If you look at your tactic history on the website, you can see the Target Time of the last 25 completed tactics to get some ideas on how the 100% point level is and what the averages are. I should note, the scoring mechanisms have changed a few times since this topic was created.

Here is a small subsection of mine:

Great! Thanks for the info!

So, I did some math and @martin_stahl, you are right, although the relationship between the number of points given to the user and the time is weak.

I assumed that the max number of points you can gain is 12 and compared 2 data points for each time I did a correct exercise:

- Time spent / average time spent

- Number of points given to me / 12

These are the results:

The algorithm looks at a number of things and one of the biggest now is the difference between your current rating and the tactic rating.

Here was the last published update about tactics, though I know they have tweaked it some more since then, especially in tactic selection balance.

https://www.chess.com/blog/News/chess-com-dev-update-may-26-2017

"- Tactics: We're received tons of feedback on the recently changes to tactics ratings and we've been listening!  The ratings algorithm now has a base of +/-10 points for puzzles; but there are several others factors that determine the actual points gained or lost:

• Number of moves correct
• Solving Speed
• Ratings of puzzle vs User Rating

Additionally, many puzzles that were way over rated are slowly being corrected. Thanks again for all the feedback regarding tactics! "

Here was the first blog post with some information on the update:

https://www.chess.com/blog/News/chess-com-dev-update-april-28-2017

My biggest issue with the tactics trainer is that the problems (at least the ones I see) are rated around 400 points too high. As a result, my tactics rating is 2500+. I can assure you that I'm nowhere near 2500+ strength at any aspect of the game, especially not tactics. Realistically I think I should be in the 2100's.

I'm very much in favor of no longer losing points on problems that I solve correctly, though. That was a good change.

I understand. Thanks for shredding off some light on this. Crazy thought: I have the feeling that the Chess Android app punishes failures far more than the PC version, but I guess that doesn't make any sense.

Another solution. Switch to unrated mode and set your desired rating ranges.

 I'm not a fan of the tactics trainer. My son used to practice these rigorously but I got him to mostly stop 2+ years ago because there were too many silly tactics, ie lots of queen sacks for example and other positions that seemed unrealistic for OTB play. At that time he was only 8 years old, 1900+ ratings on TT, and a mid level player for his age, OTB rating below 1000.  We switched to chess tempo in 2015 and I have to say those puzzles are considerably more difficult and the initial moves are often quite subtle. Comparable CT tactics rating for him at that time was in the mid 1600's. Over the last 2 years his CT tactics rating has gone considerably higher, he's now high 1900 low 2k's in blitz/mixed, OTB also higher but still mid range about 1500.