When arriving at the solve tactics page a problem will be presented for solving. You will be first shown the last move of the opponent, then it us up to you to choose the correct sequence of moves. Pieces are moved by clicking and dragging them to their new position. If you decide not to move the piece you are dragging, you can drop it back on its original position. If you select the correct sequence of moves you will be shown your rating change and if the “continue on correct” setting is on you will automatically be given another problem to solve.

If you enter a wrong move, the problem will be marked as incorrect. If the “continue on failed problem” setting is not selected you will then be able to move forwards and backwards through the correct moves using the directional arrows at the bottom of the board (or the arrow keys). To move on to the next problem, click the “Next Problem” button (or press the space bar). Use the “Give Up” button to fail the current problem.

The color of the knight in the top left of the screen indicates the color of the pieces you are controlling. The board is also rotated (so your pieces start at the bottom) if your are playing as black.

The digital time display in the top left corner is the amount of time taken to solve the current problem. This is used for determining your rating change during blitz and mixed mode rated problems.

The blitz rating type uses the amount of time taken to solve the problem in order to calculate your rating change after a win. Standard ratings only depend on correctness and ignores the time taken. Mixed rating type uses time as a rating factor, but gives at least 5 minutes before the time will impact the result. Mixed mode also includes both winning and non-winning tactics, whereas blitz and standard modes only use winning tactics. You can choose the rating type of the next problem by selecting the type using the change set button.

Note, that non-winning problems in mixed mode may include positions where the material is currently close to even (up to around a pawn down), but the position is lost in the long term. Here the best move will be the move which gives the best chances of holding a draw in a theoretically lost posiition.

Gold members can do this with the personal tag system. On the solving page, click on the “Manage Personal Tags” button (the tag icon under the list of tags), then click the “Create Tag” button. Choose a name such as “My Favourites”. This new tag will now show up in the tag list, and you can tag any problem you like with the new tag. To see your favourites, go to the custom sets page, and using the tactic tags search, search for the problems with that tag by selecting it from the list of tactical tags. You can also create custom sets if you would like to solve the problems you have tagged as favourites. You can use any of the custom set features with these sets such as spaced repetition etc. You are not limited to just one favourites tag, and could create more specific favourites such as “My favourite problems I got wrong”.

For tactical sequences that do not end in mate, the ongoing moves suggested by computer analysis can be viewed. After the problem has been marked, or when in problem viewing mode, the full analysis of the 'best' line as seen by the chess engine is shown on the right of the board. Silver and Gold members see more details including the alternative lines at each point (and for gold members the full computer analysis for those lines). The moves in the line can be clicked on to view that position on the board.

To make the current problem the last for this session expand the session info panel on the left, and click the “End Session” button. When using “continue on correct” or “continue on incorrect” mode, this step is important as it avoids having another problem served when you want to finish with the current problem.

Note: It is important to remember that ending the session means you will not get another problem served, it does not apply to any problem that has already been served. This means you must still complete the current live problem after clicking the “End Session” button, or risk losing rating points.

Tags allow users to tag problems with the category they think most appropriate for the current problem. The tags for the current problem are shown under the problem rating in the top left corner of the tactics display. These are designed to characterize the nature of the tactics found within the current problem. If you are logged in, you can vote for new tags, add votes for existing tags, or if you disagree with a tag, you can cast a vote against it. All votes are tallied up and if votes for a tag outweigh votes against, then the tag will be displayed. When problems are first added to the system, they have no tags.

The rating system is inspired by an idea implemented at the chess.emrald.net (AKA Chess Tactics Server or just CTS, and no longer in existence). CTS treats both problem solvers and the problems as opponents with their own ratings and adjusts their rating after problem completion (or failure) based on the Glicko ratings system.

For the blitz tactics rating type, time taken to solve problems is considered and an extra bonus is given for problems solved quickly. The solver gets a larger rating increase for problems solved quicker than one standard deviation from the average time taken for that problem. For problems solved faster than average, but less than one standard deviation from the average, the normal Glicko based adjustment is made. If the problem is solved in slower than average time then the Glicko rating adjustment is reduced in proportion to how much slower than average the problem was solved. Very slow solutions may result in losing rating points, however you will never lose more points than you would if you simply got the problem wrong.

When calculating the average time taken on a problem, only correct solutions are included, time taken from incorrect attempts are not used to calculate the average time a problem takes to solve.

In blitz mode, time taken after the first move is punished more severely than time taken before making your first move. The intention of this feature is to discourage “incremental” guessing to try and solve a problem, rewarding users who sum up the situation before making their move sequence. Users who prefer to use an incremental approach may still do so, however their rating will be lower than users at the same level who think out the solutions first.

Mixed mode attempts are rated the same as standard mode if they are solved under 5 minutes, i.e. time will not be used as part of the rating adjustment, and only correct/incorrect matters. If the time exceeds that level, the problem is rated in a similar way to the blitz rating method, i.e. you start to get less reward for a correct solution if you take longer than the average solution time across all users. The main differences being that there is no bonus for fast solving, there is no “time after first move” penalty, and the minimum average time you are measured against will be at least the no time-adjustment threshold of 5 minutes. This means for problems at your current rating you should be able to take at least 10 minutes before you start to lose rating points on a correct solution.

Normal Glicko adjustments are made for standard ratings with no penalty for time taken. Problems marked incorrect cause the rating of that problem to increase and the solver’s rating to decrease as dictated by normal Glicko rating calculations. Normal Glicko adjustments are also made for blitz and mixed mode problems that are marked wrong (i.e. the time taken in blitz is ignored when making rating adjustments for incorrect problems).

Each user has a chance of receiving any of the problems in the system. However it is more likely that problems with a rating close to the rating of the user will be chosen. As the user rating increases, so does the probability that they will be given more difficult problems. More specifically, the distribution curve for the problems each user will see is a bell shaped curve centrered around their current rating, and adjusted by their difficulty setting.

Easy mode produces a distribution where the centre is 200 points under the user’s current rating, Medium difficulty uses a distribution centre 100 points under the user’s rating, and Hard difficulty uses a distribution centred on the user’s current rating. Note that Medium is the default difficulty, and because the user is getting problems that are on average below their rating, they will on average receive less points for correct responses, and lose more points for incorrect responses. Switching to hard mode will lead to more balanced loss/gain per problem attempt, but will also lead to a lower accuracy rate.

A chess engine is used to evaluate positions from real games and a purpose built application examines the computer analysis and directs the engine in order to discover tactical positions and their resulting moves. Finding the positions and moves takes a great deal of computing time, therefore the tactics generator is designed to run on multiple machines with a central controller aggregating the results. Some attempt is made to determine ambiguous positions and these are discarded. The tactics generator application is not perfect and “bad” or incorrect problems can slip through, when found these problems are removed and used as test examples to help improve the quality of the problem generator.

As the tactics are taken from a database of real games, occaisonally games with hung pieces are encountered. These could be eliminated, however it has been decided to leave them in. Some players can still miss these simple opportunites, so it was decided making them part of the problem set may be useful. Those players who don’t make these mistakes should have ratings high enough that they don’t get presented with these problems very often. Paying members can also produce unrated custom problem sets that exclude all the problems tagged as “Hanging Piece”.

If you think you’ve found a problem where the solution is wrong or ambiguous the best thing to do is to add a comment to the problem. Providing details and proposed move sequences helps greatly in responding to problem reports. “1. Nf3 also wins, via the sequence X,Y,Z” is much more useful than, “This problem sucks” 😃

Playing moves that don't lead to relatively short term material advantage, but instead require a long and drawn out endgame before material advantage can be achieved can be risky in Chess Tempo tactical problems. The engine may not have been able to see far enough into the future to see the endgame reach a position of material advantage, and hence your move may be given an evaluation below what it deserves. While frustrating, this seems reasonable given that the tactical problems are about finding tactics, not playing for long term endgame wins. To avoid losing rating points in these situations, if you see a solution that you think wins due to leading to a winning, but long endgame, you may want to consider looking more carefully for a more immediate tactical solution.

Alternatives, or “try again” moves are moves that were below the best move in computer evaluation terms (by at least 1.5 pawns), but were still evaluated above 1.75 pawns. This means any move that leads to a position where you are up at least the exchange (without compensation for the opponent) , should either be marked correct or receive a “try again” response. If you are winning the exchange , you still need to be careful that the opponent does not have any pawns or even large positional compensation for the exchange, as this may be enough for the evaluation to fall below the 1.75 threshold. The same is true for winning a piece , where too much compensation may bring the evaluation below 1.75. Note that the evaluation is in terms of the final position, not how much material you have won. So if the position starts out with you being a piece down, and you play a move that only wins a piece, bringing you back to even, there is a good chance that move will fail, as it will be below the 1.75 threshold for the final position, and a much better move will be available.

A consequence of these rules is that winning a single pawn is almost never the correct solution to a problem on Chess Tempo, although there are rare cases where tactics may lead to situations where you are several pawns (and no pieces) in front at the end of the tactic.

Some users find alternatives annoying, but it is important to keep in mind that including these types of problems in the set allows a degree of realism that would not be possible otherwise. The games these tactics came from all have lots of situations where more than one good move is possible, and indeed your own games will include many such situations. The alternative system allows a wider range of realistic situations to be presented to the user, without marking users wrong for playing “good” , but not “best” moves.

It is also worth pointing out that the “try again” system is designed to protect users from failing for playing relatively short term tactical winning sequences. The intention is not to protect against failing for moves that miss the short term tactical point, and may win after a long and difficult endgame

The default “Benchmark” mode allows users to stray from the most efficient (fastest winning) line. As long as the position is still winning the user can play any move. If a drawing or losing move is played the problem is marked incorrect. If the user mates their opponent (or converts into a more easily won endgame) then the problem is marked correct. The rating adjustment for correct problems depends on how many moves the player needed compared to other players on the same problem. This allows you to still receive full points on sequences that take longer to mate if others are also not usually taking the fastest path. This is often fairer in situations where sensible human lines might not be the fastest mating lines.

“Practice” mode behaves in similar ways to “Benchmark” mode in terms of freedom to choose any winning line, however the rating adjustment is based on a comparison to fastest mating line, rather than the average number of moves across all solvers. If the player always played one of the fastest mating moves (of which there may be more than one at any point) then they receive maximum points, otherwise they will receive a reduced score based on how many sub-optimal moves were made.

“Theory” mode forces players to follow the path of the shortest solution to the problem. Moves that take longer to mate will get a “try again” response and the user must look harder for the fastest win. The problem continues until the user has either mated their opponent, converted into a more easily won endgame or played a move which leads to a draw or loss. The rating method is similar to “Practice” mode, except that instead of total moves played impacting the outcome, it is the extra moves that would have been used if the longer moves had been allowed. For positions where you attempt to play more than one sub-optimal move, the move with the longest length to mate is used for rating purposes.

Theory mode is less like a real game situation, but can be useful in showing players the most efficient way to win.

An endgame problem generator processes millions of real games, extracting endgame positions of interest. If the positions meet certain criteria they are then added to the endgame problem set.

The “Play Best” button plays the best move for you in the current position. However there will be a large penalty for using the button, so be careful how often you use it. Each time you use “Play Best” there will be a certain number of moves added to your “sub-optimal” move count (used in calculating your rating if you succeed). The penalty for using “Play Best” will be a minimum of 10 moves. If you have made any previous attempts then the penalty will be the longest attempt you had made already for the current position plus an extra 5 move penalty (or 10 moves if this number is still less than 10). The purpose of “Play Best” is to provide an alternative to completely giving up and thus to allow users a chance to learn more about a position which they may feel otherwise completely lost in.

The “Blitz” button allows you to take the option of solving endgame problems under the clock. The “Blitz” button is intended for use on endgames which you feel may be easy to mate , but not easy to play perfectly. After clicking the “Blitz” button, the clock changes to a count down timer and you have until the clock reaches zero to solve the problem. Similar to Benchmark/Practice modes (irrespective of whether you were in Theory, Benchmark or Practice mode to start with), you are able to make any move you like (as long as it is still winning). You will not be punished for moves that take longer than the shortest path to mate. If you solve the problem within the time limit, you will get full points for getting the problem correct. There are no rewards for fast times, you will be marked the same if you have 1 second left on the clock or 50 seconds. If you run out of time, get the problem wrong, or reach a drawn position then you will marked incorrect. You can only choose to blitz a problem before your first move. The number of seconds you have to solve the problem is defined by the function MAXIMUM(60,DTM*3.0+10) where DTM = Depth to mate. The time used before you press the blitz button is also included in the time allowed, so the longer you take to press the blitz button, the less time you will have to solve the problem once the clock starts counting down. When using the blitz button you are required to mate the opponent, currently there is no pruning done when using the blitz option.

Note: Because the blitz time is based on depth to mate, the blitz button is only available on endgames with 6 or fewer pieces as we don’t have depth to mate data for endgames with more than 6 pieces.

In theory and practice modes the endgame training tool currently uses the shortest distance to mate as the measurement of best moves. This means that to make perfect play all your moves must lead to the quickest mate. This can sometimes lead to situations where the most obvious move (for example promoting or taking an opponent's piece) may not always be the quickest way to mate. In these situations the server will treat takes or promotions as equivalent to the shortest mating move (as long as taking or promotion doesn’t extend the length of the shortest mate by more than 2 moves). In addition, moves that might not immediately take a piece or promote, but may lead to a take or promotion on the next move will also be allowed as long as the total sequence doesn’t increase the moves to win by more than 3 moves. If you find being assessed based on the shortest path to mate frustrating we suggest you switch to Benchmark mode which users the average performance of other users as the main rating metric.

The percentage is an indication of how close to a full point you receive for the problem. This depends on how many sub-optimal and “Play Best” button presses were made. 100% is equivalent to a full point, 50% to a draw and 0% to a loss. If the player scored 45% then if the problem was rated the same as the user it would be expected that the user would lose points and the problem would gain points, although it is possible to get a score below 50% and still gain points if the problem was rated higher than the user. The “(55 extra)” indicates how many extra moves were punished. This may be different to the extra moves that were actually played, as some extra moves are not punished (for example some slower moves that convert to a simpler endgame) and “Play Best” button usage causes extra moves to be added.

The annotations show moves that were not the best move in the position. For example M10(M8) shows you played a move that was mate in 10 where the best move was mate in 8. L10(M2) shows that you played a move that leads you to lose (i.e. be mated) in 10 moves where the best move would have had you mate in 2. D(M3) indicates a move that draws when you could have mated in 3. You can hover your mouse pointer over the other moves to find out how many moves they are away from mate.

The starting positions of some endgames are very difficult, but if the position is played well they often convert to very easily won endgames. When this happens the problem is marked correct so that higher rated players don’t have to play endgame positions they are already very good at and can concentrate on spending time on the more difficult problems in the set.

When you are navigating the moves in a problem by moving forward using the arrow button or arrow keys, the computer will play the best move which is highest in the legal move list. If you wish to examine non-optimal or alternative best moves then you can either click on the move in the legal move list or use the mouse to enter the desired move. If you are already at the end of the current move list then your move will be added to the end of the main line. If there was already a move played at that point then your move will be added to the move list as an alternative line which you can now play down (you can click back on any move in the main line to begin navigating down the main line again).

Computer assistance such as using a computer engine or tablebases are not allowed during games played on Chess Tempo. When detected, computer use may lead to account removal and permanent banning. In correspondence games, you are allowed to use opening research materials, including opening books and computer databases with opening statistics. Non-correspondence games must be played without any form of assistence. Games must be played by the owner of the account, and assistance from other players may not be used. You are also not allowed to play games across multiple account names. If you believe an opponent has breached these rules, please do not make public allegations in the forum, but instead report the issue directly to admin@chesstempo.com.

Time based rating types are defined by the estimated length of the game.

Estimated time for games with no increment is simply the initial time on the clock. Time for games with an increment are calculated by assuming the game will go for 40 moves. For example, 5 minutes start time with a 12 second increment would lead to an estimate time of 560+1240 which equals 780 seconds, or 13 minutes, leading to a classification as a blitz time control. Increasing the increment to 18 seconds would produce 560+1840, giving an estimate of 17 minutes, which would now be classified as a rapid time control.

The following rating types are defined:

• Bullet - Estimated time of less than 3 minutes.
• Blitz - Estimated time greater than or equal to 3 minutes, and less than 15 minutes.
• Rapid - Estimated time greater than or equal to 15 minutes, and less than 1 hour.
• Long - Estimated time greater than or equal to 1 hour, and less than 12 hours.
• Correspondence - Estimated time of 12 hours or greater.

Vacation and sleep are both designed to allow the user a period of time when their clock will be prevented from ticking. They are both restricted to correspondence games only, so games less than 12 hours are not impacted by vacation or sleep. Vacation allows users to take extended time off and is designed to allow people who may have extended periods away from their computer to continue their correspondence games without losing on time. Vacation time is not unlimited, and accumulates gradually over time. Sleep is similar to Vacation , but is designed for short term periods where play is not possible. Sleep allows for very short correspondence time controls that would be impossible otherwise. For example, a game in 1 day is difficult to manage, as players need to sleep at some point during the 24 hours the game would run over. Without some way of the players stopping their clock while asleep, the winner may be determined simply by the time zone or sleep patterns of the players. Sleep allows you to pause your clock on all correspondence games while you are sleeping, making these types of time controls feasible. You have a maximum of 10 hours of sleep time for each period that sleep mode is entered. Once invoked, all of your sleep is used. This means you can play before the 10 hours has expired, but you will not get more sleep time until at least 10 hours after your previous sleep time elapsed. To enter vacation or sleep mode, use the menu item in the playing menu while on the playing page. Please see the vacation and sleep section of the user guide for more details.

Yes, the playing server will adjust for the time it takes your moves to reach the server, and for your opponent moves to reach you. This means your clock will only be adjusted for time you actually spend thinking , not time spent transmitting moves to and from the server. The clock of your opponent will be similarly adjusted. If your opponent is experiencing lag, this may lead to extra time being added to their clock displayed at your end, where your opponent is being credited for the time their move took to travel across the network. Note that lag is only credited up to a maximum of 2 seconds. If you are experiencing network problems where it takes longer than this for your moves to be transmitted, then you will only receive lag compensation for the first 2 seconds.

Yes, there is a confirm move option that can be turned on in the board settings. Click on the settings icon on the top left corner of the playing board or use the Board Settings option in right action menu in the mobile web app.

If you click on the “My Chess Games” option in the Chess Database menu you will arrive at your game archive page. An opening explorer view of your own games is shown on the right. Above the opening explorer is a repertoire selector, choose either black or white and use the explorer stats to see how your performance differs in different opening lines with those coloured pieces.

After you have completed a game, you can also examine how your opening compared to the play of higher rated players. You can either click on the game in your game archive page or use the Explore in DB option in the action menu straight after completing game. If you used the Explore in DB option, then the full opening explorer stats will already be displayed, and you can move through the game to see the opening stats for each position. If you launched the game from your game archive page, you will need to change the Repertoire selector above the opening explorer to “Full Database” to see stats for all games, instead of just your own. Use the database subset selector at the top of the page to restrict the rating range of the players in order to compare the stats across different player strengths. If you would like to see how often you played into the current line in other games, switch the Repertoire selector back to the colour you played the current game under.

Chess Tempo uses three factors to determine the time control. The start time, the increment time, and maximum time. The start time is the initial time on the clock, the increment time is the time added to the clock after each move, and maximum time is the maximum time above which the increment will have no impact. For example if you have a start time of 5 minutes, an increment of 10 seconds, and a maximum of 5 minutes, and use 5 seconds on your first first move, the clock will not go up to 5 mintues and 5 seconds, but instead will be capped at 5 minutes.

Using the combination of start, increment and maximum time allows a lot of flexibility in time controls. For example you can create a correspondence time control of “1 move every 3 days” by using a start time of 3 days, an increment of 3 days, and a maximum time of 3 days. If you think you normally move once every day, but need the flexibility of a playing longer than that during busy periods, a larger maximum and start time might be useful. For example, a start time of 10 days, increment of 1 day and maximum time of 10 days may offer the flexibility you are after, without having to go to 1 move every 3 days. As long as you had been playing at 1 move per day for some time, you could take a week off, and still have 3 days left of your initial time. Playing slightly faster than 1 move per day after you return would allow you to build your reserve back up to 10 days, should you require another period without playing every day.

Time controls are sometimes displayed in the following form START_TIME+INCREMENT_TIME<MAX_TIME. So a rapid game of 15 minutes with a 10 second increment would be written as 15min+10sec. The same time control, but with a maximum time of 20 minutes would be written as 15min+10sec<20min.

Chess Tempo tries to model the FIDE laws for draw claims and draw offers where practical and fair in an online context. Draws requiring claims such as 50 move rule, and draw by repetition are not automatically marked draws, but require the user to explicitly claim them using the draw button. Draw offers to your opponent can be made at any time (on either your move or the move of your opponent), and remain valid until your opponent next moves. If you feel your opponent is making an annoying number of draw offers, you can click the ignore all button to ignore any subsequent offers from your opponent during this game.

Note that we do not currently support the newer 75 move rule or the 5 fold repetition rules, but plan to do so in the future.

If you gave permission for Chess Tempo to email you when you registered your account, then all correspondence email notifications will be turned on by default. To turn them off, or turn them on if you had previously not given permission for emails to be sent, you can go the Playing tab in your preferences.

Individual options exist to turn notifications on/off for opponent moves, game status updates (game start, game over, draw offer/rejects), and low time warning. Low time warning emails are sent whenever it becomes your turn and you have less than 12 hours to go on your clock.

Yes, if you go to your game archive page, and look at the results list, the PGN download button in the far left column of each result line will allow you to download a PGN that contains both the elapsed move time for each move, as well as the clock time at the time of the move. Together these should allow you (or your coach) to see where you are allocating your time, and identify issues with time trouble, or shallow thinking. Move times are stored in a standard format that allows software that complies with the standard to recreate the clocks as you play through the game.

1. Go to the custom set page.

2. Fill in the criteria defining the problems you want to include in your set, and the options you want to use on the set, such as spaced repetition etc.

3. Click the “Create Set” button, and choose the name of your custom set.

You can select your set at any time using the change set button on the solving page and selecting the set from the “Personal” folder.

Note that these problem sets are dynamic and if problem status changes over time the included problems are automatically updated. For example if you create a problem set which includes problems you got wrong then new mistakes will be automatically added to the set. Similarly if you create a set with a rating range of 1500-2000 and in the future problems have their ratings updated to fall within that range then they will automatically be included in the problem set.

1. Go to the custom set page.

2. Click on the ‘Set Options’ tab and change the problem selection method from random to ‘Spaced Repetiton’. It is fine to leave the default spaced repetition settings as is.

3. Click the “Create Set” button, and choose the name of your custom set.

You may wish to add other options, in particular you may want to set a rating range to target problems apprioriate to your training. A rating range also allows you to control the number of problems included in the set.

1. Go to the custom set page.

2. Click on the ‘Set Options’ tab and change the problem selection method from random to ‘Sorted (Looping)’.

3. Select the sort direction and sort by criteria. If you want the first loop through the set to define the items shown in subsequent loops, enable the ‘First loop through set decides problems considered for subsequent loops’.

4. Click the “Create Set” button, and choose the name of your custom set.

You may wish to add other options, in particular you may want to set a rating range to target problems apprioriate to your training. A rating range also allows you to control the number of problems included in the set, although you can also use the ‘first loop through set decides’ option to select a subset of a larger problem range for your loops.

Click on the “Change set” button shown when you first load the page (or shown to the right on the solving page in between problem attempts. Open the “Personal” folder, and select the custom set you want to use.

In the advanced settings of the opening trainer, set one of the two reinforcement settings (days or minimum correct) to a very large number. That will force the system to show all leadup moves no matter how well you know them. You may also need to set the “Don’t show start moves threshold” to something larger if you’ve already done some moves 100+ times, which is the default for that setting.

Note that we strongly recommend against forcing leadup moves you know well being trained, as it will take much longer to learn a large repertoire if you force the system to ask you to play all leadup moves. It can be useful in the short term with small repertoires, but long term you are choosing to spend time on moves you already know well at the expense of spending that time on moves you don’t know less well.

For each period (hour/day/week/month/year) all time high achievements can only be achieved after completing one previous period, and then only the first record for that period is rewarded with points. Your badge will still be updated with the current record, but you will only get points for the current period the first time you pass the previous record. So for example if you got 3000 problems correct last year, then reach 3001 in June in the current year, you will receive points for the achievement at that point, but not when you get 3002, 3003 etc in the same year. To receive the achievement points again, you will need to pass the record you set by the end of the year in the following year.

Please do not name the user publicly. Send an email to admin@chesstempo.com with your suspicions. Those caught manipulating the system may be blocked from using site features. Types of behaviour that may lead to blocking include running automated tools to gain achievement points and using multiple accounts to gain points, such as up voting comments or playing games against each other.

To avoid people playing large numbers of games against very low rated opponents in order to earn achievement points, only games played against players that are no more than 250 rating points below your rating are used for achievement processing. This means that games against opponents more than 250 points below your rating will not be counted for achievements such as runs of won games, playing specific activity streaks or total games played. However, these games will be counted for overall activity streak calculations, just not the ones that are specific to playing.

The achievement system only tracks achievements made after the achievements were first put in place. This means that previous all time high records, such as your highest previous rating, or highest rated problem correct or player beaten are not considered. It was decided this was fairest, especially for long term site users who may have achieved previous records when rating inflation was less well controlled than it is now, making it hard to achieve new records.

A days streak is an activity streak based on performing the activity on consecutive days. A weeks streak is based on activity over consecutive weeks. So a 4 week Weeks streak is not the same as a 28 day Days streak, as the Weeks streak can be achieved with activity in only 1 day of each of the consecutive weeks.

For daily streaks, the day ends at midnight in the timezone set on the machine you are currently using. If you are using a laptop and moving through countries while updating your timezone for each country, you should keep this in mind when trying to keep a daily streak going. For weekly streaks the first day of the week is Monday , so you have to complete at least one relevant activity from Monday to Sunday to keep a weekly streak active.

Monthly and yearly achievements such as total correct/won in a month are based on the calendar month or year, rather than when you start the activity. So a monthly total won achievement will start on the 1st of the month, and a yearly total won achievement will start on the first day of the year.

Several rating based achievements require a stable rating before they can be achieved, this avoids issues like setting all time high rating achievements due to large jumps made with an unstable rating that are later very hard to re-achieve.

Computer assistance (using an engine or tablebases) are not allowed when doing rated problems. When detected, computer use while the problem is live may lead to rating point reductions. Repeated computer assistance may lead to account removal and permanent banning. Note, that users are welcome to use computers to analyse the problem after the problem is complete. The prohibited behaviour referred to here is where the user inputs the live position into a chess engine and uses the computer analysis to attempt to enter the correct moves, thus artificially increasesing the user’s rating.

Using multiple active accounts is also not allowed, as this can allow the user to gain unfair advantages.

If users suspect others of inappropriate computer use, please do not make allegations in the forum, instead email admin@chesstempo.com with your concerns.

From the problems menu, select the “All Problem Comments” option. By default the comments list is sorted by most recent first, but you can also sort by username, problem # and commenter rating by clicking on the relevant column headings. Clicking on the problem # for any of the comments loads that problem and allows you to view the problem, all its comments, and add to the comments if desired.

The right hand edge of resizable boards has a small drag handle, half way up the edge, drag that to the right to increase the size of the board, and to the left to decrease the size. The tactics/endgame board is not resizable by default, to turn on resizing go to the “Solving” tab in your preferences, and turn on the “Enable resizable problem board” option.

Ratings for players prior to the availability of official FIDE ratings are estimates provided in the player spell checking files used in SCID and compiled by Franz Nagl. These appear to be sourced from “The Rating Of Chess Players, Past & Present” published by Arpad E Elo (1978) and the ChessMetrics estimate from Jeff Sonas. Ratings for modern era players are all taken directly from the ratings published by FIDE.

The analysis board is a chess board that can be launched from the tactic and endgame boards, it allows you to manually enter any legal moves you like, thus providing a way of investigating alternative lines in a problem. Variations and sub-varations can be added if needed. After you have finished analysing, you can copy your analysis to be shown as a new comment for the problem being analysed.

Click the magnifying glass icon under the move list to launch the analysis board window. The analysis board move list will be pre-filled with any moves in the move list up to the currently selected move at the time you launch the window.

If you have launched the analysis board from the problem solving page, you can copy your analysis to a problem comment by clicking on the menu launcher on the top left of the analysis board window and selecting one of the comment copy options. When the comment is saved it will have a mini-analysis board that can be viewed above the analysis, allowing others to easily view your analysis on a board while reading your comments. After the analysis text has been copied to the problem comment, you can add text above or below the analysis moves, and if you are careful you can edit the analysis directly, although this is not recommended, as it may create illegal moves, and prevent your analysis from being correctly shown. If you want to add comments within the problem comment editing box, you must use PGN comment format and insert comments within braces, for example 1.Nf3 { forking the king and rook } (this applies only to the new comment edit box, not the comment entry boxes on the analysis board). When editing analysis in the problem comment edit box, make sure not to introduce carriage returns into the text, as this may lead to corrupted comments. You can also use the Copy Comment buttons more than once to copy multiple analysis lines to the new problem comment if required.

First click on any move in the variation you wish to make the main line and then press the “p” key. You can also launch the annotation panel view via the blue circle menu (choose the pencil icon after opening the blue circle menu) or by using the “a” key, and then click the promotion icon in the bottom left of the annotation panel. If the variation was directly off the main line, then the variation will become the main line, and the old main line will become a variation of the new main line. If you have sub-variations (i.e. variations with variations within them), then promotion will swap the sub-variation with the parent variation. If you don’t want the old main line after you have promoted the new line, you can delete the old main line variation by selecting the first move in the old main line and then deleting it using the “d” key or the delete icon on the annotation panel.

Later moves may rely on earlier moves to have occurred in order for them to be legal, for this reason you can’t delete individual moves unless they are at the end of a variation. To delete a single move or sequence of moves at the end of a variation , select the starting move of the moves you want deleted and then press the “d” key or click the delete button on the annotation panel. Any variations of the line you are deleting will also be deleted, you can delete any variation without removing the main line by clicking on the first move of the variation and deleting from there.

Launch the annotation panel by using the “a” key or choosing the pencil icon from the menu launched by clicking on the blue circle icon under the move list. Comments are auto-saved when you leave the comment area. By default comments are edited using a WYSIWYG editor, but if you turn that off you can enter comments using the Markdown text formatting convention. You can also choose whether to attach the comment before the current move or after the current move. If you want a comment to appear at the start of a variation then you should select the first move in the variation and use the “before move” comment entry box, this will make sure that the comment will remain attached to the variation if you promote the variation at some point, this will not happen if you use the “after move” comment box on the move before the variation. To delete or edit a move comment you have previously made, click on the move the comment is attached to, and then delete or edit the text as required.

Choose the board orientation you prefer by clicking on the board flipping button (the black/white button in the bottom left of the board) before you use the “Copy to comment” or “Copy Selection to Comment” buttons.

Mini-boards shown in comments all have their own “analysis board” button. By selecting the end of the line you would like to analyse, and then clicking the mini board’s analysis button you can launch a new analysis board , add more lines and comments and then use the “Copy to Comment” or “Copy Selection to Comment” buttons as you would if using an analysis board launched from the main problem board. Note that mini-boards are essentially analysis boards in their own right, and you can add variations to them by dragging the pieces around on the mini-board (variations added to existing mini-boards are not saved unless they are copied as a new comment from an analysis board launched from the mini-board).

The “View Problems” page has a “My Comments” tab which shows all of the comments for each problem you have commented on. The problems which have had comments added most recently are shown first which allows you to see any new replies to problems you have previously commented on.

By clicking on the up or down arrows shown on each comment you are voting on the quality of the comment. If a comment receives several down votes, it may be hidden from the default comment view. The current score for a comment is shown between the voting arrows, a positive score indicates more people voted for the comment than against it, a negative score shows that overall, people disliked the comment. You can view hidden comments by using the “Show All” button. Users who have their comments consistently voted down may have their new comments hidden by default, meaning that even without any down votes, people will need to use the “Show All” button to see their comments. When a user has almost all their comments voted down, they may eventually have their commenting ability disabled altogether. Please read and follow the comment voting section of the Problem Comment Guidelines before starting to vote on others’ comments. Following the problem comment guidelines when writing your own comments is also a good way to avoid having your comments voted down.

Yes you can, but only if your comment was the last comment to be made on a problem. The reason for this restriction is that if other comments have been made since yours, they may have referred to your comment, so removing your comment would disrupt the flow of conversation. For comments you are able to edit/delete, an edit and delete button will appear at the top of the comment. If you’ve made a comment about a line that you later think may have been incorrect, then it is probably better to edit your comment rather than delete it, as others may also have had the same confusion, and your comment may be able to help them understand the position better.

The interpretation of the evaluation scores depend partly on your preference settings. If “Evaluation from white’s View” option is selected then the evaluation next to each analysis line will be positive if white is ahead, and negative if white is behind, and black is ahead, this is a common convention used in many popular chess applications. If this option is not selected then the evaluation for each line is positive if the player to move is in front and negative if the player to move is behind, this is the same method used in the tactics evaluation display. Moves are coloured green, red or blue, depending on whether they leave the player to move ahead, behind or in an even position.

The “Evaluation from white's View” option choice only impacts the evaluations shown in the engine analysis output panel. If an evaluation is inserted into the move list, it will always use the “Evaluation from white’s View” method. This avoids having the sign of the evaluation constantly flip as the side to move changes, which can make scanning a move list annotated with evaluations quite difficult. When reading evaluations inserted in a move list they can be interpreted as the evaluation of the position that arises after the previous move. Another way of intepreting the inserted evaluations is that they show the evaluation that would arise if the next player to move played the best move according to the engine.

Irrespective of which method of evaluation output is used, the evaluation is always in terms of pawns. So +2.5 would indicate a margin of two and a half pawns. Engine evaluations are made up of both positional and material factors, although positional factors will rarely equate to more than a pawn’s worth of material. Some engines will output very high evaluations in the endgame to indicate an endgame position which is deemed to be a clear win, but where mate has not yet been determined. These evaluations may be very high, and may not have a direct correspondence with pawn units.

If the move played in the game at the position being analysed appears in the engine best lines list, then the moves in the matching engine line will be coloured orange up to the point that they still match the line in the game.

You can copy engine analysis into the move list by clicking on a move in the line you want to copy. The line up to and including the move you clicked on will be inserted into the move list, along with the analysis for the line.

When an engine is locked, you can move around in the move list and insert engine lines into the move list and traverse those lines without the engine changing the position it is currently analysing.

Once an engine is unlocked, it tracks the currently selected position, so as you move around the move list, the engine stops analysing the previous position, and starts analysing the current position.

Press the space bar and the current best move will be played and inserted into the move list. If the engine is “unlocked” it will automatically move onto the next position and start analysing.

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A condition of your membership is that you agree to supply your FIDE id, this is not displayed to other users, but is used to attach title information to your username which is visible to other users. Your FIDE id is also used to collect site usage stats based on your current rating - again no personally identifying information is shared with other users.

If you hold a GM or IM title, and want to apply for a free membership, please send the following details to the admin@chesstempo.com email address:

• Your name and FIDE id
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• Your current Chess Tempo username.

When viewing the problem after solving, click on the blue circle menu under the move list, and choose the “Show PGN” icon (the folder icon).

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