Tactics server

Why don't YOU prove it wrong instead of him proving it right?

Originally posted by Automaton
Why don't you prove it wrong?

because that's not how things work with people making up stories. it's up to the storyteller to prove it.

Originally posted by philidor position
seems you love stories. prove this.

I was there when he started thinking of writing his own tactics training script. it's all not so ancient personal history. (I think he even asked permision to use the set, but it's been a couple of years already and it's not like copyrights were the problem anyway.)

Checkmate.

Originally posted by wormwood
I was there when he started thinking of writing his own tactics training script. it's all not so ancient personal history. (I think he even asked permision to use the set, but it's been a couple of years already and it's not like copyrights were the problem anyway.)

Well even if there's a history of negotiation or a pondering on the idea (and I must say, I suppose not), I specifically know that the site uses it's own problem generator based on Toga engine from the very beginning and there are no CTS problems in the set.

I don't really see the point in making such a huge claim without proper information.

(and to automaton, stop acting like a child.)

Originally posted by philidor position
Well even if there's a history of negotiation or a pondering on the idea (and I must say, I suppose not), I specifically know that the site uses it's own problem generator based on Toga engine from the very beginning and there are no CTS problems in the set.

I don't really see the point in making such a huge claim without proper information.

(and to automaton, stop acting like a child.)

I was there. I was also one of the very first users of chesstempo. anyone who's done a lot of problems on CTS notices instantly that the problems are same, except that on chesstempo you're required to pick up more moves where the CTS version stops because of ambiguity. I've had many many iterations of talking about the problems of re-calculating the solutions, some of which he took up and some of which he never seemed to get. after about 5-7 times of him 'fixing the problem set', hitting a bad problem within one short session, I was done with it.

that said, it's much more important to train on an inferior set, than not training at all. same applies to many old sets, like reinfeld's 1001 sacs or the CT-ART set. they have errors, a lot of frustrating errors. they're useful, but claiming the set is superior is simply rubbish.

Originally posted by wormwood
that said, it's much more important to train on an inferior set, than not training at all.

I disagree!!! I have elaborated on my issues with the Tempo site in some other thread 😉

Originally posted by philidor position
Well even if there's a history of negotiation or a pondering on the idea (and I must say, I suppose not), I specifically know that the site uses it's own problem generator based on Toga engine from the very beginning and there are no CTS problems in the set.

I don't really see the point in making such a huge claim without proper information.

(and to automaton, stop acting like a child.)

😞 sorry.

What's wrong with the Tempo sets? Every single time I thought there was an error, it turned out to be my mistake... Maybe it's different for the problems in the 2100+ region? I wouldn't know.. anyways..

Sure the continuations are weird sometimes, but I still take the time to see why the weird continuation was the computer's first choice if I don't understand it. Also, fast tactics would certainly seem more appropriate for blitz skills. If Botvinnik is one of the best players of all time, I don't see how being good at blitz is a must and transfers to classical time control skill? Like he said '' Sure I've played blitz.... once.. it was on a train..'' It seems to me that training fast tactics would actually promote superficial thinking and guessing, no?

Correct me if I'm wrong...



I forgot to add that I'm not really against ''fast tactics'' I think it's important to have some patterns printed into your brain, but I def don't think it should be the only training.

Originally posted by wormwood
I was there. I was also one of the very first users of chesstempo. anyone who's done a lot of problems on CTS notices instantly that the problems are same, except that on chesstempo you're required to pick up more moves where the CTS version stops because of ambiguity. I've had many many iterations of talking about the problems of re-calculating the solutio frustrating errors. they're useful, but claiming the set is superior is simply rubbish.

I've done more than 10K problems on CTS and now I'm on tempo for more than a year and I never noticed an identical problem. I'll check this but I still believe there are no live CTS problems in the system.

I guess there's a long thread of me and heinzkat discussing about this, but I'll make it short: I've had my share of rants about the alternative move system in the comments section under the problems there, but each time I was humbled either by stronger players or computer analysis and I've finally understood in 99% cases it was simply me failing to find accurate moves.

Edit:

OK, now this is confirmed. there are no problems taken from CTS, but both CTS and chess tempo use databases of real games played by humans and if there's any similarity between a 5-10% of problems this is because possibly the generators of both sites have chosen overlapping positions from overlapping games.

I agree mith maxacr, I now have a rating around 1800 and never have found an incorrect problem. sometimes I have them wrong, sometimes I don't understand why, but after further look are reading the comments I always end up understanding the reason and agreing. Maybe higher rated problems are less clear, still I challange anyone to produce more than 1 faulty problems from CT.

Originally posted by orion25
Maybe higher rated problems are less clear.

I don't know about the top problems but 2000-2200 are OK too.

Stepping away from the argument between the two sites for a second...

I've recently bought Seirawan's tactics book (and his strategy book, but that's separate to this issue), but I've also found (and quite enjoy) chesstempo after reading some of these forums.

Any advice on where I should concentrate? Is it worth reading (and finishing) the book before I even start solving on chesstempo, or should I use both in a fair mix? [Or, of course, should I just ditch the book and work on solving online problems because chesstempo will teach me a lot more quickly?] If anyone has actually worked through the book, hopefully they'll be able to offer some comments...

Originally posted by philidor position
I've done more than 10K problems on CTS and now I'm on tempo for more than a year and I never noticed an identical problem. I'll check this but I still believe there are no live CTS problems in the system.

I guess there's a long thread of me and heinzkat discussing about this, but I'll make it short: I've had my share of rants about the alterna ...[text shortened]... y the generators of both sites have chosen overlapping positions from overlapping games.

10K problems. 🙄

the CTS problems were mostly generated with betax engine, then the bad problems got handpicked, and eventually we ended up with the current number of problems. that's also why the problem ids go up to 65K, even though there are about 23K problems left.

the CT guy was a CTS user for a short while. he wasn't very good, and that's probably also why he never understood the critique towards his set. I'm sure his intentions were good, but he simply didn't get it. I've been over this many times with him, beginning from before he wrote a single line of chesstempo, to several iterations after launching the site.

like I said, I was there. you were not. and it's silly that you insist on things you know nothing about. I have important things demanding my attention than arguing the umpteenth time about CTS vs CT. like the lint in my navel.

Originally posted by DanielCoomber
Stepping away from the argument between the two sites for a second...

I've recently bought Seirawan's tactics book (and his strategy book, but that's separate to this issue), but I've also found (and quite enjoy) chesstempo after reading some of these forums.

Any advice on where I should concentrate? Is it worth reading (and finishing) the book b ...[text shortened]... e has actually worked through the book, hopefully they'll be able to offer some comments...

both, in a fair mix 😉