| Username: | |
| Blitz Rating: | |
| Standard Rating: |
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" option is selected 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" option 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. You can use the directional arrows at any time, but if you were still in problem solving mode, use of the arrows will cause the problem to be marked incorrect. To move on to the next problem, click the "Next Problem" button. If you click "Next Problem" when in problem solving mode, the current problem will be marked incorrect before moving on.
The color of the knight in the top left of the screen (labeled "To Play") indicates the color of the pieces you are controlling.
The digital time display in the top right corner is the amount of time taken to solve the current problem. This is used for determining your rating change during blitz rated games.
The blitz rating type uses the amount of time taken to solve the problem in order to calculate your ratings change after a win. Standard ratings only depend on correctness and ignores the time taken. You can choose the rating type of the next problem by selecting either "Standard" or "Blitz" for rating type, which is shown under the move navigation buttons.
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, you can click on the computer icon next to the forward and back buttons. This will extend the move sequence beyond what was required for a correct problem and show the full analysis of the 'best' line as seen by the chess engine. The moves in the computer line are not checked for ambiguity so should be seen as a suggested line, not the only line possible.
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 right 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, 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. Each user can only select one tag per problem. When problems are first added to the system, they have no tags.
The rating system is inspired by an idea implemented at the Chess Tactics Server. 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 blitz style games, 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.
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.
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.
The Toga II chess engine is used to evaluate positions from real games and a purpose built application analyses and directs the analysis 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 finder 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 finder application is not perfect and "bad" or incorrect problems can slip through, these are deleted by hand when discovered.
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 (i.e. myself :-) ) 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.
Chess Tempo was developed by Richard Jones (the guy writing this FAQ :-) ), you can contact me by emailing richard@chesstempo.com
I had become frustrated with the number of tactical blunders I kept making in my own games. After looking at some free desktop tactics training tools, I thought it might be fun to write a web based trainer that others could also use. So I got started coding. Part way through this, I stumbled upon Chess Tactics Server. CTS had done a good job of implementing much of the functionality I was interested in seeing and I considered ditching my own project. However CTS was missing a few features I had on my wishlist and given I had already written at least half of my own application I decided to forge ahead. Unfortunately, coding has taken up more time than tactics solving so I am still making all those silly tactical blunders :-) I hope others find Chess Tempo useful in improving their game.