"Good Move Keep Looking."

[chipschap]

This discussion is interesting and worthwhile but implicitly raises a side point: are we playing (here) for rating points, or playing to improve?

Of course, I watch my rating and try to bring it up.  But my primary goal is to improve my skills.  The "good move but look for a better" ensures that I work harder, seeking the very best move, while not penalizing me for a move that would be "good enough" in a tournament game.  It's an excellent compromise which emphasizes learning (my primary interest) while treating ratings (my secondary interest) fairly.

Now to anticipate a possible counter argument: are ratings indicative of skill improvement (thereby implying that ratings are quite important)?  I think the answer is "somewhat."  Better players will have better ratings on the average and in the long run.  But ratings here, like in tournaments, have a way of taking care of themselves.  As someone once said, "your rating will go up when it's supposed to."

So give me the hard challenges.  Make me find the best moves all the time.  That's how I'll learn the most.

[tacto]

Good point ^

I got really frustrated once or twice already...

I was doing a problem for about 10 MINS! and  I found 2 good moves but each time it said to look for better...when I did the last move I failed... lol

Has happened to me a few times. It IS frustrating to look at a problem for 10 mins find 2 solutions and then to fail at the third attempt.


BUUUT, I learned a lot from those experiences. On CTS it is very clear why what is better etc... CT is a better challenge and will definitely improve my chess more.

[richard]

tmr: The current situations where alternatives are allowed to be very close to the best move in evaluation was a bug that crept in during the last generator update, previously the best move had to be close to 2 pawns better than the second best move.  I've changed the latest generator to re-instate the gap but have made it a bit lower,  as with alternatives it is not as important to have a huge gap between best and second best, as long as the gap is large enough for a reasonable human to justify the difference. Fixing this will again reduce the problem set , but hopefully not by much.  I am producing more problems but it is a reasonably slow process.  There are two modes in which the generator runs, a verification mode and a generation mode.  The two most recent updates were done in verification mode where the newest generator is run over the current problem set and problems the new generator doesn't like are thrown out, this process is relatively fast as I am going over positions I know already had tactics, not having to search though new positions for tactical opportunities.  I'm currently running the generator in generation mode which will be producing new problems that should be the same quality as the current set except that the best move to second best move gap enforcement has been re-instated.

tacto: I agree it is frustrating to spend 10 mins finding 2 good moves and then fail the 3rd attempt, but it would be much more frustrating if you found 2 good moves after 10 mins, played the second best good move and got marked wrong which was happening with the previous set.  There are still a few problems where there are alternative lines that will probably win that are not marked as alternatives.  I have to choose an evaluation cutoff to determine if a position is won or not and sometimes, especially in the end game a fairly small evaluation advantage can still indicate a won position. The current cutoff seems to be a reasonable compromise as there are very few of these problems in the set now.  I may drop the cutoff a bit lower next time, but reducing the cutoff also reduces the problem set size.

chipschap: I agree that the "look for a better" approach does offer a reasonable compromise. I think an important third factor aside from rating points and improvement is general enjoyment of the site. Previously many users, especially those with higher ratings were simply frustrated with the number of times they would play good moves and get punished.  There may have been instructional value in looking at the better move, but if users are not enjoying using the site then it makes it a lot harder to keep using it and therefore getting any improvement. I think the "look for a better move" approach probably brings back a lot of enjoyment by removing the frustration and fear that comes from having to wonder, "I know this is a good move and any GM would be happy playing this, but has that damn Chess Tempo computer found a move that wins even more material".

Regards,
Richard.

[tomohawk]

I checked out ChessTempo some time ago, but these alternate winning lines that were marked as wrong was just too annoying, so I didn't come back. Someone on CTS told me that this problem had been improved, and I am happy to see that he was right. I will now alternate between here and CTS. Keep up the good work!

[richard]

Thanks tomohawk,

The current problem set is certainly a vast improvement over what was available a few months ago.  There is still room for improvement (as you noticed with 36672), but the problems with issues that remain in the set appear to be very much in the minority so I think the site should be a lot more enjoyable now, especially for the high rated players who were getting the brunt of the bad problems as  problems with alternative winning lines were more likely to get high ratings and therefore get served up to the higher rated players.

Regards,
Richard.

[slacker00]

I am satisfied with this feature.  But it did suprise me the first few times I saw the dialog box pop up, and I even knew that it was a pending feature.  I can somewhat understand the confusion a new user might think when they first see the popup. 

I'm still annoyed in blitz mode, getting a popup box, it can be a distraction.  In standard mode, I definitely want to be able to examine a problem to the nth degree.  So my personal opinions varies depending on which mode I'm playing.  maybe I'll get used to it in blitz mode. 

But it would be nice if I  could select whether I wanted to see those  types of problems or not for each mode.  In standard mode, I definitely want those types of problems, but in blitz mode, I'd maybe pass for now, maybe picking them  up later on.  Just an idea.

[richard]

Hi Slacker00,

I think the best solution here is to have a non-obtrusive notifier of "good move, try another".  The main issues as I see it are a) the dialog obscure the board and b) the user needs to waste time interacting with the dialog.  I think a small panel to the right of the board similar to the one which tells you the result of the last problem would be a better idea than the dialog box I'm currently using, this would solve both a) and b).  I currently have this fairly high up the todo list, but there are probably other enough items above it to prevent me doing anything on this for another week or so.

Regards,
Richard.

[drahacikfm]

How about a user option, to have it the way it is now with the popup that you must "ok", or to have informative text on the right side of the board.

slacker00:  Allowing people to choose not to be served problems that have alternates... I don't think that would be good, or even fair.  You can't have different users doing different sets of problems if it's rated.

[richard]

Hi Drahacik,

Are you saying you would prefer the ok dialog? It shouldn't be too hard to provide as an option, but I wouldn't have thought many people would prefer the popup to the right hand panel..especially if it was obvious when the panel was notifying the user of the alternative move.

Richard.

[drahacikfm]

I would probably choose the right-hand panel.  But newbies might not notice that, and wonder why their move was rejected.  So it might be better to have a popup as the default.  But allow users to switch to the panel after they understand what's going on.

[richard]

I would probably choose the right-hand panel.  But newbies might not notice that, and wonder why their move was rejected.  So it might be better to have a popup as the default.  But allow users to switch to the panel after they understand what's going on.

Good point, I'll look at how obvious things are with a side panel and make it optional if required.

Richard.

[stormcrow]

I like the feature.  The 2nd best move is often pretty darned good.

[slacker00]

The popup seems to work fine for me.

It's getting easier every time I see the popup.  It's funny how trained we can get doing tactics problems, almost needing to do an extra problem to get the right answer.  It does make me feel weird, getting a "correct" answer, but then trying to guess  what the computer had in mind.  But it's really helping me learn quite a bit, maybe even more than the regular problems.  Like I said, it takes  a while to get comfortable with  the concept.

That said, I think I'll avoid blitz for a while before I feel  like I'm knee-jerk comfortable with the popup concept.  I clumsy enough at blitz as it is, I  don't need any extra distractions.  Getting that popup is kinda like getting a little smack in the face, probably for the best, but certainly breaks my  concentration for a bit.  At least in standard mode, I feel I've got time to take a deep breath and refocus without worrying too much about taking too long.

[richard]

Slacker,

I do think an info panel at the side of the board will eventually be the default for the "good move" message, especially for blitz where flow is probably more important.

Richard.

[boybawang]

"Good move keep looking"

I played an equally good move but the problem wants another variation.  What's unfair is that precious time was already spent for it. And more time will be spent for looking another good move. In blitz mode, the more time you spent the more rating penalty.

solution 1:
     Give time increment each time chesstempo rejects our good move.

solution 2:
     When such situation occurs, chesstempo should rather autoplay the move it wants then resume to normal. That's fair enough than penalize us for the variation it can't handle properly. Besides, we do LEARN from the autoplay 

solution 3:
     When it occurs, the problem will terminate and marked as solved. rating gained should not be full anymore. Anyway occurrence of such problem is few.


I hope this helps...
cheers!