I'm going to say it...I hate chess.com's puzzles

Warning: big baby alert.  I'm going to complain.  I'm going to over-exaggerate to make my point.  I'm also extremely frustrated.

I feel like 9/10 chess.com puzzles are almost negative learning. 

Oooo...you can fork the king and queen with your knight?  Too bad, it was mate in 4.  And in a bizarre sequence of moves too.  Enjoy your -15 points. 

Cool!  You spotted mate in 3!  Too bad there was another mate in 2...again, in an equally bizarre and unconventional way.  Have another -13 points on the house. 

See that hanging bishop?  Take it!  Ooops, sorry, in 3 moves you could have set up a pin that won the rook.  Try not to let the -15 points sting. 

Having trouble finding the move?  Been staring at the screen for 10 minutes and have no idea where to begin?  Sack the queen. 

Not sure if you should check the king with the bishop or rook?  Sack the queen. 

Are you in a pawn endgame?  Promote to queen...then sack it. 

Are you in another king/pawn endgame?  Is your king protecting your pawn and you're not sure if you should advance your king or your pawn first, even though regardless, your pawn will still be protected from the opponent's king?  Good luck.  You have a 50/50 chance of guessing right.  But like guessing which way a USB goes into the slot, there's only a 10% you'll get it right on the first try. 

Hey, you got the right move!  But there are several more to go to solve the puzzle...and trust me, they're so weird, they're non-intuitive.  Don't take the bait.

Wow!  You actually solved that mate in 3!  We have, just for you, 5 whole points!  That's because it took you 1:43 to solve but you should have been able to get it in 0:27.

OK, I'm going to be completely serious here.

I feel that the majority of chess.com's puzzles are so non-intuitive, it's almost impractical.  I realize that not every puzzle translates directly to how I'll play in a game, but I'll seriously look at a puzzle, immediately see a hanging piece, or an exchange where I'll end up +1, and then I'll sit there for 5 or even 10 minutes evaluating everything I can think of because I just know that there's a "gotcha" somewhere.  Sometimes, after experiencing gotcha after gotcha, I'll see a hanging piece and I'll know that can't be it...I'm missing a mate in 3 or a way to win the queen.  10 minutes and -14 points later, nope...you should have just taken the hanging piece, idiot.

Yes, I'm aware I can do custom puzzles.  Yes I'm aware I can adjust the rating range in custom puzzles.  I'm complaining because I'm frustrated.  And even though my observations above might be a little exaggerated, I there's some truth as well. 

Or, maybe this is just the point of puzzles and I've reached my intellectual limit at the upper 1800s.

As an aside, it would be nice if there was a graph that could show you where, exactly, your weak points are...based on all your puzzles over the last 30, 60, or 90 days, here are the top 6 puzzle categories that seem to be giving you the hardest time, and then you can just click on the graph and start solving those puzzles.  Maybe there is and I'm missing it?

Maybe I'm missing the point of puzzles altogether?

OK, I'm done.

lol, i tottaly agree

You can choose "puzzles I have failed" in custom puzzles.

First of all, I don’t think you’re doing that bad. Looking at your rating at Rapid, Blitz and Daily, you are doing quite well. If you can keep this up, your rating will improve in all of them.

Regarding the ‘fairness’ of the puzzles. This is a concern for all players. Everyone feels cheated every now and then. That;s why it’s good to realize that the puzzles are solid, designed to have a solution that’s demonstrably the best. That’s why people like Hikaru can blast through puzzles in seconds. 

Another thing I’ve noticed watching streamers play puzzles is that they have a specific approach to solving puzzles. Also, they pause their move before they play and check other options. There’s a lot of great content available. Daniel Naroditsky’s content on puzzle solving was recently recommended to me.

I’ve also checked the last few puzzles that you failed, just to see if they were indeed difficult. Some were, but at least half of them were not. I can guarantee you'll do better if you take your time and focus.

I mentioned this a while ago myself. A lot of them are kinda frustrating, because there's an easy forced 4 move checkmate, but it wants you to sacrifice to do it in 3... etc. This was my own post...

MisterWindUpBird wrote:

OCD I know...

Some puzzles just leave me scratching my head. How are you meant to guess that from several possible moves, the opponent is going to try to ineffectually block a check by hanging their queen? 

And more importantly, what are you meant to learn from that?

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

According to 'the forum' you're meant to work out that it can delay the checkmate a move by hanging the queen, and expect that move... Surely if the computer has calculated some line where it can force stale mate or something, let it play out so I can see it and learn. I didn't save the puzzle but it looked like a forced mate however you played it. There are some weird puzzles. 

Chess.com puzzles are fine, but I dont recommend them.

If you really want to improve at tactics and pattern recognition, get a puzzle book and play it out on a real board. 

I love this rant😂😂👍i totally agree

Thank you for saving me a whole lot of typing.

You are singing my song!

Can you actually show a puzzle where there is mate-in-3 and it is wrong? I have never met any.

Or, for that matter, I have never met any of your other examples either.

Yeah. Me neither. There are very few that I see (hardly any) that don’t make sense. I’d be fascinated to see some examples. 

The point of solving puzzles is to find the best move(s) in the given position.

Finding "good enough" moves (even though they may be winning), is still an incorrect solution.

That's basically the whole point of puzzles ... to train your accuracy, and to improve your calculation skills.
Part of calculating is to consider all the viable options that you can.

This is useful for OTB play, because you might find an excellent move that wins in nearly every situation ... but if there's even one possible line where that move doesn't work, then that move is an inaccurate move.

... That's chess for you.

Personally, puzzles are not for me.  I practise using lessons, opening explorer, chess AI, etc.

We are not talking about that. We are talking about a mate-in-3 that works every time. If the engine says that mate-in-3 is incorrect because there is a faster mate, that is a bad puzzle. It can safely be reported.

By the way, I think what really happened is that the opening poster misunderstood some puzzles, and the solutions that he gave are simply wrong.

Lessons are nice, but they do very little if you don't improve your calculation skills. And for that the best method is to solve puzzles. Solve a lot of them.

If you find that puzzles are hard, that is good. Solving hard puzzles is the way to get better.

The puzzles are good cause they learn you just because you seen a good move you need to look for something even better. You can't just go with the first thing that pops into ya head. It's not worth winning his queen when there was checkmate lurking

If a player plays mate-in-3, but there's a faster mate available, then mate-in-3 is incorrect.

For example:

"White to move".

Obviously, white can deliver checkmate with the rook. That would be the correct solution.

But what if the player plays this, instead:

The player could say, "But I delivered checkmate in 6! How could a checkmate be wrong?!?"
Because the point of solving puzzles is to find the most accurate move ... not "good enough" moves.