True. It makes no sense anymore. It is just frustrating!!
Puzzles Update Is Bad
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Aug 2, 2025
0
#3
I First thought it was Just a bug. But this is so frustrating! Specially with puzzle Battle.
Aug 27, 2025
0
#7
I've been saying this about Puzzles for a long time and the only thing people want to say is that Puzzle Rating has nothing to do with anything to it doesn't matter, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
There's so many different things they could do with Puzzles but they choose the path that is the most shall we say, "catching" in their eyes. It's nothing but bragging rights for people to say they have a 7000 Puzzle Rating even though they know means NOTHING; by their admission when the subject of the Puzzle Rating being broken is brought up and they argue that it doesn't need fixing because it has nothing to do with anything else. Boggles my mind how people get easily corrupted by the idea they have a "High" rating at something despite the fact they "know" their high Puzzle Rating means nothing.
The last couple of days of puzzles since the rating and puzzle change of 10-9-25, for me, has moved from challenging, linear, encouraging and fun, to disjointed, confusing, and sometimes making no sense? My rating dropped from in the 2700's to 1700's. Now, I'm a new-be who hardly plays games, and have a very low elo, however when I do play and practice with bots, I can see how the past puzzles were improving my ability to see patterns and mating ideas which I would have missed. The rating number doesn't mean that much to me but to have a sense that I'm learning and growing, especially as I get incorrect does, especially since I have limited time to play. The structure of some, quite a few of the new puzzles have lost something? I'm too new to the game to say what, but they feel less something? and more and more I find myself going what??? And am left feeling as though I didn't learn anything.
3 days ago
0
#9
Previously, I would get puzzles that showed tactics I should look out for in different positions and they tried to drill that in as much as possible. Now it’s usually very specific things that only work in a single position, and while it’s a tactic, it’s rarely applicable to real games. I think overall they made it worse.
2 days ago
0
#10
DonaldP27 wrote:
The last couple of days of puzzles since the rating and puzzle change of 10-9-25, for me, has moved from challenging, linear, encouraging and fun, to disjointed, confusing, and sometimes making no sense? My rating dropped from in the 2700's to 1700's. Now, I'm a new-be who hardly plays games, and have a very low elo, however when I do play and practice with bots, I can see how the past puzzles were improving my ability to see patterns and mating ideas which I would have missed. The rating number doesn't mean that much to me but to have a sense that I'm learning and growing, especially as I get incorrect does, especially since I have limited time to play. The structure of some, quite a few of the new puzzles have lost something? I'm too new to the game to say what, but they feel less something? and more and more I find myself going what??? And am left feeling as though I didn't learn anything.
The puzzle selection algorithm is the same that's been in effect for months. The change is that the member ratings were updated and the puzzles now show the updated ratings as well.
2 days ago
0
#11
DonaldP27 wrote:
The last couple of days of puzzles since the rating and puzzle change of 10-9-25, for me, has moved from challenging, linear, encouraging and fun, to disjointed, confusing, and sometimes making no sense? My rating dropped from in the 2700's to 1700's. Now, I'm a new-be who hardly plays games, and have a very low elo, however when I do play and practice with bots, I can see how the past puzzles were improving my ability to see patterns and mating ideas which I would have missed. The rating number doesn't mean that much to me but to have a sense that I'm learning and growing, especially as I get incorrect does, especially since I have limited time to play. The structure of some, quite a few of the new puzzles have lost something? I'm too new to the game to say what, but they feel less something? and more and more I find myself going what??? And am left feeling as though I didn't learn anything.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/announcing-new-puzzles-rating-system
I must say that I am grateful to be a student of personal development and growth. Over the course of the evening I found myself asking, is it the puzzles, or is it me? Admittedly experiencing that 1000+ rating drop was a sock in the gut, and I was experiencing frustration, but after I took a break and decided it was going to be up to me to make this work and continue growing as a player on chess.com, I found myself asking what if it's not the puzzles, but my emotions and my perception of the puzzles that are effecting me now? Just like when I'm in a bad mood or tired I play games poorly? After a nap and pigging out on pizza and ice cream 😄, I came back, made up with the puzzle board😊😇😃, and now I'm back to growing and having fun with the new set up. A little change in attitude and a positive growth minded perception can go a long way!!!😃
Puzzles on this website used to be a useful training tool, with puzzle strength being a fairly reliable indicator for how tough a puzzle was. In addition to that, your speed and accuracy were weighted fairly.
The new puzzles update has been terribly executed. Chess.com seems to have followed Lichess in allowing members to choose their puzzle strength, but have completely missed the mark. They have also ruined user puzzle ratings entirely. When you set the puzzle setting to "Extra Hard", you don't get much harder puzzles, nor do you get more points for solving harder puzzles.
There also doesn't seem to be ratings for individual puzzles anymore. Why remove that? Puzzles on chess.com used to be difficult, and thus a useful way to improve and measure one's improvement, but now you can reach 5000+ puzzle rating with ease. Maybe that's the goal here, so that every beginner can show off their 10,000+ puzzle rating, but until then I'll be using other sites and tools for improvement.