lichess.org
Donate

Puzzles are really annoying me.

#1
Hate to say it but machines are not brilliant at running puzzles.
The amount of puzzles I have lost, just because the final move was with the incorrect piece, not an error, but a centipawn inaccuracy.
Adding insult to injury, the system gives me predominently +8 or +9 for solving a puzzle, and predominantly -17 or -18 for not finding the correct solution. The rating of each puzzle is hidden until you commit !
It may be fair in that the same rules apply to all the players, but boy does it get you shouting at the programme.
Anyone else feel the same way ?
#2
"The amount of puzzles I have lost, just because the final move was with the incorrect piece, not an error, but a centipawn inaccuracy."

Link to an example. The number of people who make this or similar complaints and are wrong dramatically, dramatically dwarfs the number who do so and are right.
#3
@MarkEdwards I think that you are getting this very wrong. Lichess doesn't have puzzles, it has positions where you have to find the only best move and then keep finding the best move and you can be safe that there is only one since Stockfish has checked every other possible continuation before the puzzle gets uploaded.

Just like in real life, it doesn't matter if you found 3 of the 4 best moves, to train correctly you have to find them all. You don't train to show off your rating, you train to understand the game better. Nobody cares about your rating and neither should you. What you should care about is why this move doesn't work and this one did...

Again. There are no puzzles here, only positions.
#5
I felt the same way you did when I started doing puzzles, but I realized that with the higher rated ones the tactic in the position is a given, the "follow up" move that maintains advantage is the real puzzle, which is fair because as was mentioned there is usually only 1 idea that holds, and it's usually not by single centipawns, but moves that are very obviously winning (or drawing) to the engine. Also I believe it takes the time u take to solve into consideration when giving points.
#6
@MarkEdwards

The effect of what you find irritating, is probably the #1 function to your improvement when studying these positions.

I know exactly what you're talking about.
I find it equally irritating.

I - Would - Not - Have - It - Any - Other - Way.

This setup forces you to calculate absolutely every single little stupid variation and side variation, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how tedious, no matter how obvious, no matter how complex, no matter how simple.

When it comes to the differences between titled players and the rest of us, there are many.

One of those differences is the capacity to see with bredth.

We can understand why GMs can see depth and we just can't; however, when it comes to seeing bredth, we have no excuse.

Knowing that a puzzle could cost you 25 hard earned points, FORCES you to take pause, take pause again, take more pause after that, and finalize it with more pause on top of some more pause.

The whole meanwhile, you're scanning and tracking and calculating and envisioning and working at it and looking into it and practicing and learning and growing and exercising neural pathways that wouldn't otherwise have gotten the use.

This process, if repeated over and over again, REGARDLESS of if you move a piece or not, and ESPECIALLY if you do not, will grow your vision.

You will magically start to see things that you know good and well you would have missed on a lesser day and/ without this practice.

This process is as magical and ominous as the reason your next conscious thought will be what it is, instead of something else.

But we don't have to know the 'what' and the 'how'.

All we need is the 'that'.

We know that engaging in puzzle study, and feeling that irritation of uncertainty, and then forcing the mind to prove itself certain, is very good for the chess-mind's capacity to better calculate positions.

Yes, it's irritating.
Yes, it hurts.
Yes, it's effective and good for your chess.
#7
It sucks though when you're at work and trying to kill a couple minutes but don't really have the time to work out a 5-move variation.

I know, save it for later, but some of us lose patience
#8
@ProfessorBooty

If you're studying those puzzles as a tactical improvement tool, then you found exactly what you're looking for.
You said it, "save it for later".

If you're playing those puzzles with the goal of finishing as many as possible, W/L, then I can see where only having a couple minutes is a problem.
#9
@MarkEdwards
@Chuck_Fess
@TurtleHermit

Correct; it often might SEEM as if the later moves are mere irrelevant variations, when in fact they are critical.

Here is a case in point. It LOOKS like after "solving" the "real puzzle" in the first move, it is then optional whether first to exchange queens before capturing the bishop, or immediately to capture the bishop. Actually only one is correct, while the other loses.

lichess.org/training/74102

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.