Weirdness in puzzledom

Putting aside the capricious way the puzzles are rated (or marked unrated after selecting Rated), there's a new glitch that just appeared today. One puzzle had White's king in double check, from Black's rook and bishop, and was labeled "Black to move." Huh? I thought, "Mislabeled?" but couldn't move white. The hint suggested moving the rook...Huh? So I reloaded and moved on, solved a couple of puzzles, only to find that the same thing kept happening: I would put the White king in check and read "Black to move"--and indeed, only Black could move, but in one case, no move was acceptable. In the weirdest example, the White king was in check from the (only) Black rook, and the "correct" move was to move the rook so that Black was no longer in check. Not quite the way I'm used to playing chess. Is this "cybermodern" or what?

Chess.com does not offer puzzles like that. They are no kids and no trolls either. So I suppose it was a "user puzzle". Whatever you do in chess.com to present a puzzle doesn't turn it into a puzzle. A puzzle is an object with certain properties - like being solvable. It is not the name of the forum it appears in, it is not the text in the puzzle, it is not the tick of the puzzle checkbox. What you have seen were not puzzles.

Thanks, that's sort of helpful--or would be if I were choosing a puzzle from a forum. However, since I never visit forums, why do such things appear on Chess.com's Puzzle page? You say they don't: well, yes, they do.

Related: why, when I check "Rated," do I get Unrated puzzles about 50% of the time? Why, when I solve these so-called Unrated puzzles without errors, is my score as likely to go down as up? I wouldn't mind if they didn't change--the exercise is useful--but it is definitely disconcerting when the score goes down. I bought a year's subscription, hoping to be able to work through puzzles with the encouragement of a "score" (that I know has nothing to do with an official rating, which doesn't interest me). I can understand why I would lose points for making errors (some of which, it seems to me, rather arbitrarily decided (in one case, I got a valid checkmate only to be told it was incorrect because the apparent point of the exercise was to capture a bishop that was totally incidental, effectively letting the opponent avoid mate). I can also understand that asking for a hint would lose a few points. But solving an Unrated puzzle? Huh?

I’m new, been here a month but I’ve played chess for decades. I spend time on the puzzles too. It’s time consuming to type out the play sequences to explain the puzzle errors. Everything you wrote, I’ve experienced the same. Your tone barely reflects frustration and disappointment that I feel.
I read in a FAQ that the number of the puzzle is shown in the lower left. I take it that it’s the number labeled DIFFICULTY. That FAQ also read that there was a number on the lower right of the puzzle which when you push it, it’s the number of the complaint report. I am only a Premium member and therefore don’t have such a box or a number ... MAYBE. If you’re a Diamond member do you have such a box? Or not? Just guessing, he FAQ read that that is how we should report a bad puzzle. Your report helps all of us

OK, I get it. I guess I have been solving different puzzles ("Rated" a while ago / "Puzzle Rush" every day) and never seen a really bad puzzle. I am a guest user and may not get into the parts you are doing but it would be strange when "guests" get the good puzzles and "paying members" get the bad apples.

I do know that puzzle scoring also depends on how fast you solve besides how difficult a puzzle is. And I assume it takes some time before new puzzles get a proper rating. Sufficient solver attempts are required before a puzzle can be rated. The choice for the "rated" section indicates they affect your puzzle rating and says nothing about the puzzles themselves.

Last, I wonder whether or not the interface plays a role - e.g. the weird double check displays. I have seen issues reported on the mobile app which I never use. May be others have experiences to report about that.

Actually, I think those working on the website don't pay much attention to the puzzles, if any. Some solutions depend on extremely poor choices by the opposing side. Some are truly imbecilic. I didn't know my score would depend on the other's stupid moves, and that's quite disappointing.

And what's with the rating system anyway? Why do some one- or two-move solutions get 11 points while others, more complex, net 2 or 3? Some puzzles overlook obvious forced mates in 2 or 3 moves. In at least one case, a "rated" puzzle changed itself to unrated and deducted 13 points for having solved it even though I didn't ask for a hint and made no errors. I've given up trying for a higher score; what's the point if the system is, to put it bluntly, unsystematic?

And what's with the time factor? Sure, time constraints are specific to tournament chess, but that's a relatively recent factor, the history of the game considering, and still not intrinsic to the game itself, so that "friendly" games are in effect spoiled by having to think of clocks that may be in different time zones. Moreover, it's inconsistently applied. It seems to play a role in some puzzles (unrated?) but not others.

In short, Chess.com's whole puzzle thing is a mess. I've played enough games now that it's too late to want my money back, and I'll continue to try my hand at other features (keeping my fingers crossed until cheated), but I definitely won't be renewing, and I'm already warning friends not to bother.  Pity that no one in charge responds to our observations. The message is pretty clear: "Suckah! We don't care!"

Thanks

I'm inclined to agree with you. Then again, there is a bigger mess here when you see the games of most players on this site. Makes me a bit more forgiving about the puzzles

Yeah, I just got to where you are with that. It suddenly dawned on me that the puzzles are "solved" by the recorded response of an actual game, irrespective of skill level, instead of a better move made by a better player. So one is going up against a wide range of experience and ability. If you regard the other player as having less of both and imagine the dumbest move in response to the "correct" one, you might be successful...or not, and vice versa. For example, there might be a dozen ways in a given position that the "opponent" might save his or her queen, and maybe one or two ways of losing it. If you go with the first--the smarter, more experienced player--you stand to lose points if the actual response from someone with two weeks experience provided the "solution." But if you go with the less experienced, you might lose points if you think, "Well, of course they wouldn't do that" and then they go and do exactly that. So in some cases, the best "strategy" is to find the obvious trap...and ignore it. 

I guess in a way it mirrors the game you'll find in NYC's Central Park (except some of those guys are phenomenal, so you have to watch your step and don't pay to play). Sometimes you'll get an opponent who gives you Fool's Mate (and incidentally, at least one of the puzzles is exactly that).

So since the folks who run Chess.com really don't care and just throw stuff out there without any reasonable criteria for evaluation, I suspect that you'll get stuff from anyone at any level. I think I'll try Learner mode and see if it's any better.  It would actually help if they eliminated the rating system altogether and awarded no points at all, since some obvious solutions merit many points, trickier ones fewer, and some award or deduct points apparently at random. I'm trying to disabuse myself of the assumption that points matter; in this case, they really don't.

Boy, I sure did waste $99.01 subscribing to this site; what a scam!

You can help raise the level of puzzling by occasionally posting some good ones in the Puzzle or Endgame forum. I have tried this for years but I am still the minority reporter. Solving forum challenges is just as good a training as doing chess.com puzzles but you won't get any points for them.