Problems in Tactics

The biggest problem in Tactics is that it is impossible to know which side White began from. Sometimes White begins from the top, sometimes from the bottom. The only way to know for sure is through an educated guess, but that does not work out in all cases.

The second biggest problem in Tactics is that some problems are intolerant of alternative correct answers, or actually promote the wrong answer over the right answer. There are not many problems like this, but there are some problems like this, and no way to report them. I have commented on the bad ones because commenting was the only thing I could do.

Unless you have your settings to always show white on the bottom, the side to move is always heading up the board; i.e. the board is correctly oriented for the side to move.

That is helpful. I changed my setting so White is always at the bottom. Now I have an advantage over everyone else doing Tactics that does not know that secret.

Ok, let's test the theory out. Side to move is Black. Which way do the pawns go? No fair making an educated guess. Educated guesses work in some puzzles, not all.

This is what comes playing hundreds of tactics. You start to notice the little problems in the system that really impact a small percentage of the puzzles. Probably chess.com figures, doesn't matter, most people won't notice most of the time. They are right about that.

I would say your settings have it so that white is always on the bottom, so since it is black to move, the bottom is rank 1 and that is the direction black is moving.

Even without that, the pawn structure makes it pretty obvious in that one.

I'll wait for a better example, until I get one of the end game puzzles where there are just a few pawns at different points on the board. Then I will test the forum denizens again and see if anyone gets it right.

The default setting on the site is that the board will always be oriented with the side to move at the bottom. So, if you have that setting changed, I can see how it might be confusing if you forget that fact.

This is true. I modified my setting last night after your timely intel. Thank you! But, you know... a "wish-list" item would be to improve Tactics/Puzzles, so that even a neophyte, untutored by the wise (you are among the wise), can know instantly which way is which. It could be as simple as a mere graphic or text denoting "White" and "Black" or even language-free, by a colored King, white or black, at either end of the board.

By default, I believe board coordinates are turned on as well, so that would tell members which way the board is facing, unless they changed the coordinates to off.

https://www.chess.com/settings/board

Ah ha! More useful intel. This has been a most rewarding conversation for me. I turned coordinates back on. I had turned them off, because your old-time chessplayer already knows the coordinates by heart. If I had not learned algebraic after 45 years, then I would be a sorry state indeed, although I started out using the old style, like P-K4, Lasker's notation in his wonderful chess books. O.K., I guess then I must reluctantly, let chess.com off the hook on this one point, because coordinates are, in fact, turned on by default, so this would be a non-issue for MOST users.