Rating Chess tempo and FIDE....

[drahacikfm]

Sergei, when you get the silver or gold membership, you can make your own special problems sets.  For example, you could make a problem set that only has double attacks and pins, with no mates.  The personal sets are good because you can choose any ratings, any kind of tactics, any number of moves, problem you have done already or not, etc.

[richard]

Hi Sergei,

In addition to Drahacik's comments about the customizable problem sets, I also plan to introduce more endgame related positions in the future.  The current generator does not produce many endgame positions, so I'll probably be writing a new endgame generator rather than update the current code.

Regards,
Richard.

[newlook]

I second Drahacik's endorsement of the custom problem sets. I am now using one of my relatively low-rated sets more than the Standard full set. It feels more useful to get a lot of easy positions quickly in the same time it would take to solve a couple of harder problems -- more exposure to more patterns.

The one weakness of using tags to create sets is that many problems don't have tags. I try to tag every problem I do. It's a small way that we users can help each other.

[elddir]

you should ask for ICC blitz/ standard ratings as well, I'm sure many people have those

[richard]

Hi elddir,

I'm hoping to have time to add code to request ICC usernames before the next site update.  It is a much better source of performance data due to the greater frequency of play on ICC compared to FIDE/UCSF rated tournaments.

Richard.

[texian]

"It is important to note that if you do a lot of tactics per day like on CT or CTS you WILL have a temporary decline in rating becuase your thoughts are UNBALANCED. ex. you concentrate more on your plans than your opponents"

The guy at the local club who coaches me informally noted this in my play and pointed it out to me.  "You're finding tactics for yourself but you're not seeing your opponent's tactics."  It's a real danger.  To combat it, I now take a few moments to look at the board and try to find a tactical opportunity for my opponent.  I'm not quite "there" yet but it is helping.

thanks for passing along this tip, chipschap .. this may be a little off-topic, but thought i would reply anyway .. i haven't played in 30+ years prior to returning to chess about a month ago .. i was never that good OTB and never a rated player .. having studied the game many more hours than i ever played, solving tactics problems was my favorite endeavor .. growing up in a small town had many advantages, but finding other chess players wasn't one of them

i am now putting the majority of my time into tactics training here and at CTS .. while my ratings are still meager, i can see gradual positive improvement on most days and then there are days that are but a daze 

recently, after a lengthy and successful session where i was really "seeing" problems well, i ventured forth into a few rated games at FICS (i've generally been avoiding rated games) .. i was awful, not bad as usual just plain awful

however, in 2 games earlier tonight at FICS, i found myself seeing my opponents tactics for the first time as your friend suggested (both of us were rated around 1300 and playing 30 0 games) .. i still blundered badly a couple of times, as did my opponent, but according to Crafty i was picking best moves much more frequently than usual in both games .. that rather than win or lose is my current measure of success

before embarking on any concentrated strategical studies, i'll try adding your friends suggestion to my game play .. it should at least prove interesting and hopefully helpful .. for example, tonight i saw (more clearly than usual) a couple of tactical traps i recognized from CT and CTS work and managed to avoid them - such is progress

[spassos]

Danish rating: 1985 - FIDE: 2055 -  ICC: 2023 -  CT: 1905
As a newcomer I find solving tactics at Chesstempo highly enjoyable - but to this whole debate on comparing FIDE rating and CT rating I´d like to point out the following

Tournament chess is first and foremost a question of building postions, and avoiding BLUNDERS in the fourth hour of play!  Its a game of positional understanding and physical as well as mental stamina

I know several players who will solve tactical problems faster than me, when shown a certain position, but who wouldnt stand a chance against me in a 4 hour game. They may be smarter than me.. but in a real game they never reach a position from which they can launch their firework of tactics... 

Tactical ability is only a small part of the tournament player´s strength as measured by FIDE-rating, and to my experience this ability may vary quite a lot among the ordinary players/strong amateurs I know (1200-2200) 

[dav_de_brux]

Hi all,

Belgian rating: 1537
chess tempo rating: 1901
Playchess rating (20/0): 1851

My "web" ratings are quite new...3 months before, I could not reach 1700 on playchess. Maybe i am improving but I am under the impression that they are all overestimated.

Whatever, the pleasure of playing chess is there 

[uri blass]

Danish rating: 1985 - FIDE: 2055 -  ICC: 2023 -  CT: 1905
As a newcomer I find solving tactics at Chesstempo highly enjoyable - but to this whole debate on comparing FIDE rating and CT rating I´d like to point out the following

Tournament chess is first and foremost a question of building postions, and avoiding BLUNDERS in the fourth hour of play!  Its a game of positional understanding and physical as well as mental stamina

I know several players who will solve tactical problems faster than me, when shown a certain position, but who wouldnt stand a chance against me in a 4 hour game. They may be smarter than me.. but in a real game they never reach a position from which they can launch their firework of tactics... 

Tactical ability is only a small part of the tournament player´s strength as measured by FIDE-rating, and to my experience this ability may vary quite a lot among the ordinary players/strong amateurs I know (1200-2200) 

I disagree with you
Avoiding tactical blunders is clearly a tactical ability and I think tactical ability is a big part of playing strength.
The tests are only find winning and not avoiding blunders but I think that this only means that the CT rating is not accurate in testing tactics.

I think that a better test can be to take positions when human players made a tactical blunder and have exercises when the target is simply not to blunder(not to blunder can be also to find a winning move but only in part of the cases and in many cases it can be to find a move to prevent a loss).

Some details about me:
Fide rating 2035->(I am going to get 2049 in the next list)
Israeli rating 2046->(I am going to get 2070 in the next list)
Blitz CT rating: 2143.7
Standard CT rating: 2106

Uri

[richard]

Hi Uri,

There was a long discussion recently on the forum about "defensive" tactics.  I agree it would be useful to have these types of problems and I'm hoping to add defensive/"avoid blunder" tactics to the problem set in the future.

Regards,
Richard.

[spassos]

Dear Uri!

Of course you need a certain level of tactics to avoid traps & blunders, but and I´m quite sure this "defensive tactical ability" is something very different from finding winning moves in positions you never saw before - positions you didnt "build" or "create" yourself...

Anyway by mentioning your rating details - as I did mine - you are only confirming my point!

The ONLY international valid and comparable rating we share is the FIDE number You´ve got 2039 (going at 2049) I´ve got 2055. In other words we are likely to be very close in real playing strength at the present moment.

Still you´ve got a substantial higher CT-rating (2100-something as compared to 1900-something) and this clearly shows the absurdity of comparing FIDE and CT-rating - unless you´re up there among the world class players, chess leaves a lot of room for personal style..may be I learned chess in the tradition of Nimzowitch & Larsen - and you in the tradition of Morphy & Tal .. ??

Spassos

[uri blass]

I do not think that my style is similiar to Morphy & Tal
I usually do not sacrifice material in games.

Solving problems is a different situation.

I am also not the best player in solving problems related to my rating.

I got a record of 2210 blitz rating and 2118 standard rating after a lot of training(solved many hundreds of problems) but I decided to leave this site for the site of http://chess.emrald.net/

I got rating record of 1673 at the time of posting (with 1899 tries) and I will try to improve at least 10 points per day

The advantages of the second site are:
1)There is also defensive tactics when you need to find the only move that is not losing
2)The opponent replies are human replies and not computer reply when here the opponent may reply a computer move that gives a rook that is easy to capture instead of allowing the user to win more material that the user may miss in a practical game.

The only disadvantage may be the fact that the time control is faster in the second site but after thinking about it I am not sure if this is a disadvantage because I believe that fast detection of tactical patterns can be productive also at slower time control and it is possible to try to solve the problem also with no time restriction after a failure.

Uri

[richard]

Hi Uri,

CTS is a good site and does have both those advantages. Another disadvantage of CTS is that CTS has no "allowed alternatives" and no cut-off gap between best and second best moves so you can find problems where you can say for example win a Rook but be marked wrong because there was also a Queen win you missed.  There are situations where Chess Tempo fails a winning move (for example when you miss mate in 1 or play a mate 8 when there was a mate in 2), but in general Chess Tempo does not allow situations like the Rook win versus Queen situation mentioned above (it would have the Rook take as an allowed alternative).

In any case enjoy playing wherever you go :-)

Regards,
Richard.

[newlook]

The only disadvantage may be the fact that the time control is faster in the second site but after thinking about it I am not sure if this is a disadvantage because I believe that fast detection of tactical patterns can be productive also at slower time control and it is possible to try to solve the problem also with no time restriction after a failure.

That is very similar to the argument that blitz chess helps standard chess. Most people who play a lot seem to disagree. For example, Drahacik told us that his son's chess trainer/school (I'm not sure exactly) does not allow him to play blitz at all.

Speed of recognition will come naturally with lots of practice. No need to impose a time control. I do only standard mode here, and over time more and more solutions pop out at me before I do any calculation.

[uri blass]

The only disadvantage may be the fact that the time control is faster in the second site but after thinking about it I am not sure if this is a disadvantage because I believe that fast detection of tactical patterns can be productive also at slower time control and it is possible to try to solve the problem also with no time restriction after a failure.

That is very similar to the argument that blitz chess helps standard chess. Most people who play a lot seem to disagree. For example, Drahacik told us that his son's chess trainer/school (I'm not sure exactly) does not allow him to play blitz at all.

Speed of recognition will come naturally with lots of practice. No need to impose a time control. I do only standard mode here, and over time more and more solutions pop out at me before I do any calculation.

The difference is that based on experience I did not improve in bliz by playing many blitz games based on rating in blitz(to be more correct I slightly improved from the time that I started but after small improvement my level was constant even if I played many games so I did not play blitz in the last year) when I feel that I improve by solving tactical problems(maybe it is an illusion and improving in rating points does not imply improving playing strength and I really do not know).

Note that I do not avoid standard time control and if I fail to solve a problem at the blitz time control the next step is to  try to solve it not for rating(earlier than today I simply looked at the solution but I think that it is better to try to think about the problem for more time in case of failing to solve it at blitz).

Practically I get the same problem that I got in the past again after many tries
It may be disadvantage for rating but I think that it is an advantage for learning tactical pattern recognition because even if I solved a problem in the past it does not mean that I remember the solution well enough to give the solution in less than 3 seconds so repetition trains the brain to remember.

Uri