You could try and train yourself to ingnore the timer. It's a little hard but ultimately it will do what you want. Your rating will probably take a hit but you'll get the tracking and eventually you'll get to a level where you should stabilize ratings-wise.
At some point, you'll probably start climbing back up as you get more familiar with the patterns and start seeing the best lines to calculate faster and more accurately.
Just exit out if you can't figure it out. TT will not penalize you ! Hilarious, isn't it ? There....anymore trix you need ?
Just exit out if you can't figure it out. TT will not penalize you ! Hilarious, isn't it ? There....anymore trix you need ?
You misunderstand. I'm not looking for a way to avoid getting penalized; I'm looking for a way to get credit for practicing. Chesstempo.com gives you credit for solving the problem no matter how much time you take, but in a timed game one can't take forever to figure it out. My suggestion splits the issue in half. You get rating points for solving with time pressure, but you also get a running tally of failures and successes without time pressure.
The only penalty you get is by not solving the puzzle.
The pass rate on most puzzles is 30-50% even on easy ones. Which is crazy to me seeing the clock makes people rush, which is totally the wrong approach. The time does not matter at all. Do not move until you see it. Late it take 10min if needed for a problem of average time 30seconds. At least you got it right and did not gave up. It is after all a training resource the time is there only for record keeping and to give you problems that are more managable for you.
It seems you only do the tactics for one reason- stats and rating. I fear that is the wrong reason as tactics trainer is under the learning section and not much to do with competition.
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I love TT, and I average 10+ problems a day (sometimes way more), but I still have a problem with it.
As it stands now, it might better be called "Tactics Tester." The relentless ticking of the clock, and the threat that your rating will go down if you take too long on the problem, combine to encourage rash decisions and half-baked plans. Now, I have used TT in practice mode, giving myself all the time I need to solve the problems, but it's a little unsatisfying because there's absolutely no record that you've been there. You could spend 2 hours in that mode and do over 100 problems, and when you leave the progress screen is unchanged. At least in a book I put in a bookmark to show my progress.
So here's my suggestion: Include practice mode on the statistics page. Anything related to rating would remain unchanged, but, for instance, there could be two sets of bars showing attempts and failures. On 12/5, for instance, you might have a red/green bar showing # of attempts in practice mode, and the pink/blue bar for rated. This means, of course, that the date would appear twice on the line. In the far right box where your cumulative stats appear, there could be total time, percentage of wins, etc., for both practice and "testing" modes.
I can't imagine that these changes would challenge a competent programmer, but they would , I believe, go a LONG way toward encouraging people to spend more time actually STUDYING the tactics as opposed to just trying to beat the clock.
What do you think?