Tactics Preview on App vs PC

I use Chess.com on the website in a browser.

When you do tactics you cannot see each tactic puzzle until the clock starts.

I just tried the App and I see that for each tactic you can spend as long looking at it before you start the clock.

Would be better if the app did not allow this free preview since, with the preview, App users will tend to have much higher tactic scores than Website users I would think.

The target time that each tactic has assigned to it is surely meant to be from the moment the player first sees the tactic puzzle, so then giving App users a preview for as long as they want is going to skew the target times.

I'm on the Android beta, but the time starts immediately when the tactic is presented to you in rated mode. Pretty sure it worked the same way in the old version.

Hi Martin,

This is what I see when I go to my home page (not the tactics page) on the Android App.

I see several suggestions for things to do, one of which is 'Tactics - Can you solve this?'. The suggestion includes a preview of a Tactics puzzle. This turns out to be the actual tactics puzzle I then get presented with if I do choose to go to tactics. But I can spend as long as I like mulling the puzzle through the preview before starting the tactic puzzle on the clock.

Ah, I turn off the home page, so I don't see that anymore. However, if that is the starting position to solve, you only get the benefit of extra time on one tactic. Unless someone goes back to home each time, it shouldn't have a huge rating impact.

Hi Martin,

Even if people only cheat on 1 puzzle per day it will likely still have a noticeable effect on their tactics rating.

But, as you point out, players currently also have the option to go back to the home screen for each of their puzzles to peruse the preview as long as they like, which would significantly raise their tactics rating (possibly by several hundred points).

I often look at a player's profile to get an idea of their ability, and their tactics score is an important aspect of understanding their skill level.

It would be good to know that the tactics rating you see is an accurate reflection of ability and not a cheater's rating.

If the live preview on the home page were replaced with a static dummy puzzle JPEG then we would know that everyone's score is an honest score.

Thank you Chess.com for removing the rated puzzle (formerly called tactics) preview on the app.