Tactics Trainer average time

I'm hovering between 2200-2300 on TT. Normally, the average time is a minute or two. But recently the average time for the tactics have been under 15 seconds, even if it is quite complicated. I've been getting an unsatisfying 50% on many of the tactics simply because I spent more than 30 seconds on the puzzle. Is something wrong?

Edit: I looked through my tactics and saw that there is a "target time" and an "average time". The "target time" is extremely low sometimes, especially on tactics that are way below my rating. One of the 1800-rated puzzles I did had a target time of 10 seconds.

https://www.chess.com/blog/News/chess-com-dev-update-april-28-2017

From that news release:

Foremost, we saw a major overhaul to tactics! - Wider variety of skill level: Instead of grinding through puzzles in a narrow band that closely hugs your rating, you'll now see more puzzles that are quite a bit higher rated than you, and a lot of tactics that should be easier too. This is much more realistic to what you will find in your actual chess games - and we think it’s more enjoyable too! Plus, you’ll have access to a much larger pool of puzzles with a lower chance of repeat.

- More "personalized" scoring logic: Given the increased variety, we don't want your rating to be dramatically affected by an occasional miss on a lower-rated tactic, or a longer think on a harder one. We introduced the concept of "Target Time." Target Time is personal; it's the maximum time you can take to solve the problem to still score 100% and is determined by several factors, including your current rating and the number of moves required to solve the puzzle. (It’s about half the time we would expect a similarly-rated player to take to solve the puzzle, so to score the full 100%, you do have to think fast!) For those who still like to see the Average time, you still can! Just hover over Target Time for a pop up!

 - Puzzles allotments reset based on local time: Whereas previously, you had to wait until Midnight PDT/PST to get your next set of puzzles, they will now reset at Midnight in your local time zone. (We did briefly try a 24 hour rolling window, but based on member feedback we changed this! Thanks to everyone who wrote with suggestions!) 

I personally hate the new upgrades. My TT score has dropped precipitously, and I don't have far to drop I'll tell you. I'm trying to learn, but when I lose 11 points for missing only one of three or four moves on a tactic rated several hundred points higher than I am, that just makes me mad. It's not fun. I'm seriously thinking about dropping my plan back to a basic level. 

Moreover, some of these puzzles are very complex, which is great, but should I really lose 11 points on all of them even when they are far more difficult? Plus, seeing some repetition in the tactics was a good way for me to memorize patterns. I've watched the videos, I try to repeat the ones I miss many times. I use the computer analysis to see why my mate in 3 is so much worse than the intended mate in 1, but I'm not progressing, and it just sucks.

I could not find out which problem you were talking about, the one rated several hundred points higher than your rating, where you got 2 of 3  or 3 of 4 correct and lost 11 points. (I looked at the list of recent problems you attempted.) I saw only one rated several hundred points higher than your current 957 rating and you got 0 of 2 moves correct.

It looks like you have been taking much longer than the target time, in some cases many times the target time on nearly every problem.  That was a good strategy under the recent scoring arrangement, where you wouldn't lose any points for a correct answer, no matter how long you took. The new  scoring is sort of a compromise with the scoring for most of the last 10 years, where there was pressure to work fast and you could actually lose points for taking a long time to solve a problem correctly. I don't believe you can lose points unless you get all or part of the problem wrong but you get very few points for a correct but slower than average solution.

It may take you a while to adjust. There is a point to including time pressure. It is a real factor in all types of chess.

Do you often lose games because of the time control?

The target time is the time to get a 100% score. Otherwise, the tactics scoring is essentially the same and scaled on how far off of average time you are for successful tactics, though with the wider range you might gain or lose a few more points than with tactics closer to your rating.

I have seen an increase in my TT rating since the change was released to beta users a month ago. Though my last session gave me a bit of a drop.

My rating shot all the way to 2503 - and then dropped down a hundred points with a THUD. The new system probably increases the fluctuation, is what it does.

My rating has gone from 1451 to 1087 since the 28th. I'm done. From now on I will be doing my tactics at Chess Tempo. I am somewhat new to chess and some of these tactics are to far above my rating.

It seems to me the Tactics Trainer (which is rather good, overall) has an identity problem.

Is it a game where people strive to get the highest rating?  It is a source of entertaining and challenging puzzles?  Or is it intend to train tactics, of the sort that you should see in a matter of seconds?

I prefer the third use case.  I want to see tactics which I should find immediately, or at least quickly, and if not I want the solution so I can see what it is I'm missing.  I don't really care about my Tactics Trainer rating, except to the extent that as it goes up the puzzles get more challenging than I really want them to be.

I don't really want an interesting and challenging puzzle--I want a pattern that I see or I don't see, and if I don't I can go over it a few times to see what I missed.

But others may not want the same thing I want from Tactics Trainer, which makes it hard for everyone to be satisfied.

The fact that you can select "unrated" and choose positions by theme and rating is nice, but the fact that these interactions do not generate stats is a drawback.  The stats which show you the type of positions you tend to miss are among the more useful features of the TT, so it would be nice if they were available even in unrated usage.

It isn't the ones far above your rating that are hurting you. It's the ones far below your rating that you get wrong far too often.

With 14,000+ problems in the last nine month, or about 50 per day every day, your rating will quickly adjust to a new level.

https://www.chess.com/stats/tactics/warhorse52

I urge your to stick it out and see where it levels off.

Don't forget- the problem ratings will be adjusting too.

notmtwain, I think you're right, and I'm probably just very frustrated because the new updates have knocked me back down to what may very well be a more appropriate level for me, and it's never fun to drop.  I've seen tactics in the 1200 to 1300 range (though true it's infrequent) and frequently it feels as though out of say three or four moves, I get the first or second correct, miss the last and BAM -11. Maybe it's not as bad as it feels at the moment.

True I do take a very long time because I have to think A LOT. I'm 45, my brain doesn't work like it once did. When you have a tactic at 1100 where the most obvious first move is hardly ever the right one followed by a 500 tactic where the most obvious probably is correct, I can't help but take a minute to think it through over and over to make sure I'm not missing some trickery (I know, not trickery, complexity) that's lurking in there.

I never lose on time in games...I lose using good old fashioned bad playing, thank you very much. And however fair and superior the TT is now, it's just not as enjoyable. I feel defeated by it.

Brains work just fine at 45. That's exactly my age and I'm quite a fast shooter... :-) 

Let's fight that age myth together, man! You can still work yourself up to speed if you want to.

@solskytz, that's what I've been telling myself. I've decided to spend a year using the tools here to try to become a better player and document my efforts specifically to see if someone my age could make a significant leap from casual player to formidable. I'm feeling pretty frustrated right now, though. My brain's fine with other areas of my life, but I just can't seem to find traction with chess. I'm doing the lessons and reading the articles and tactics and it's like an impenetrable fog in my head. I haven't been doing it very long so maybe I need to just stop being a wimp, shut up, and deal with it, right?

I'm out of here! This "new" TT is simply no fun anymore. Yes, I train to improve but I also like to enjoy the activity instead of swearing at the computer! I gain 10 to 15 points for solving correctly and lose 50 to 60 points for a failure. That's backward if you ask me. I get five tactics right and lose it all with one mistake? That's DEmotivating for me. See ya on Chess tempo.

I made a comment above, that I prefer to use the TT for improvement, and not worry about the rating, except that when it gets too high it no longer generates puzzles I can either solve or fail quickly, which somewhat defeats the purpose.

But I do want to say, to anyone who hasn't tried it.  Do a couple hundred problems over a few days and see where your weakness lies.  The stats break everything down, such as sacrifice, deflection, back rank, basic mates, etc., in great detail.  After about 200 problems, I had tags with I got 100% correct, and I had tags which I got 0% correct.  And I was quite surprised which ones I got 0% correct.  And setting the TT trainer up to feed me those type, I definitely noticed an immediate improvement, including positions in games where I said to myself "I would not be doing this if it weren't for Tactics Trainer."

So I do think it can server it's purpose, if it's purpose is to make you play better.  If it's purpose is to be it's own minigame, I do think it is pretty flawed, because the rating doesn't seem to relate to an OTB rating in any way, and the positions themselves seem sometimes to have almost random ratings.

Great, so can someone answer this - https://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/why-am-i-getting-1400-rated-problems-on-tt-of-late ?

<Rsstrahan> - "maybe I need to just stop being a wimp, shut up, and deal with it, right?"

No - I would never say that. Improving in chess doesn't come easy to most players, regardless of age. It's just that once you're over 40 you tend to blame age for something that could have also happened earlier. 

When I was 10 I made a mental note to myself, that I use to forget or lose my stuff (in the real world, not chess) all the time, and that I shouldn't forget that fact by the time I turn fifty, and then start worrying about "losing it". 

If your mind works well in other areas, that's all the proof you need. Improvement in chess isn't an easy task... but playing it is fun, and talking about it can also be - so long as you don't invalidate your own abilities and your own potential, and don't let others do that to you.

In your last bunch of tactics, your highest point loss was 11 for a missed tactic.

His complaint makes no sense.  He hasn't lost any points since the change.

Here is his graph:

 His rating is at its all time high.

He hasn't even tried any problems using the new scoring format.

I am so sorry to everyone who wasted their time reading my comment above. I was VERY upset at another site for how they re-did their TT that I put my comments on the wrong site. OMG - here comes Alzheimer's I am sure. Once again my apologies to all and to the management of Chess.com. I love THIS site!!  Please ignore my stupidity. This is so totally embarrassing, as it should be