Lichess, which I thoroughly regret to have been introduced to only a few months ago, is a definitely wonderful chess-site, all the more remarkable that it is open to all including the most cash-strapped players – thank goodness.
I train with Lichess puzzles to improve my chess level, and they generally work very well. From time to time however, I do experience frustration to a degree. After noting the clearest occasions for several weeks, I found three types of anomalies. Here are three cases in point, one of each type.
Type I
Some puzzles just jam. 50854 for instance :
Dc4+ d5 And then no further move is allowed. I tried all of them regardless of their value, and they all get the failure answer.
Type 2
Some puzzles lend your virtual opponent incredibly bad moves. 2350 is such a case :
1 NxBf5 (only move allowed by the puzzle). And then :
… dxCe5 ? instead of BxDd1, obvious move, thus forsaking your Queen.
And what follows is nearly as incredible :
2 QxBg4 Nc2+ forking the King and the Rook – ok, but
3 Kd1 Nd4 ? instead of NxRa1
The puzzle ends with a victory message. Some victory.
Type 3
Some claimed failures are just equivalent to official solution – let alone better solutions. Number 29626 :
Te2 is the book's solution but two other moves are better though they are counted as failures :
a.- KxNf8 and nothing will prevent black Rook b2 from causing a check by the Bishop and threatening an unprotected white Rook at the same time ;
b.- Rb5+, securing white's a5 Rook as well as c Pawn next move, before it becomes really dangerous.
Both solutions come at no cost and are rated as failures.
I was lucky enough to run into a comment by (apparently) a Lichess administrator explaining two things : one was that in early stages, puzzles were generated by a second-choice software and that removing older puzzles was more or less impossible. I'm in no position to comment on that, much regretting to be thoroughly unable to make any suggestion.
The second comment gave some useless hope : users rate puzzles, and badly rated puzzles can just be ignored. There are two flaws, and the most obvious is that when you randomly call a puzzle, it pops up without showing its rating.
The less obvious is that an easy, ready-to-use rating should give plus and minus numbers as ratios of number of plays.
Then rises the matter of having players' opinions in the first place, if possible in significant numbers. Maybe with a comment of the type : "This puzzle has not been tested often enough yet to be rated ; please test and rate it" ?
I dearly hope a solution will come soon to clear Lichess of its puzzles problem. Keep up the good work – and thank you very much indeed.
I train with Lichess puzzles to improve my chess level, and they generally work very well. From time to time however, I do experience frustration to a degree. After noting the clearest occasions for several weeks, I found three types of anomalies. Here are three cases in point, one of each type.
Type I
Some puzzles just jam. 50854 for instance :
Dc4+ d5 And then no further move is allowed. I tried all of them regardless of their value, and they all get the failure answer.
Type 2
Some puzzles lend your virtual opponent incredibly bad moves. 2350 is such a case :
1 NxBf5 (only move allowed by the puzzle). And then :
… dxCe5 ? instead of BxDd1, obvious move, thus forsaking your Queen.
And what follows is nearly as incredible :
2 QxBg4 Nc2+ forking the King and the Rook – ok, but
3 Kd1 Nd4 ? instead of NxRa1
The puzzle ends with a victory message. Some victory.
Type 3
Some claimed failures are just equivalent to official solution – let alone better solutions. Number 29626 :
Te2 is the book's solution but two other moves are better though they are counted as failures :
a.- KxNf8 and nothing will prevent black Rook b2 from causing a check by the Bishop and threatening an unprotected white Rook at the same time ;
b.- Rb5+, securing white's a5 Rook as well as c Pawn next move, before it becomes really dangerous.
Both solutions come at no cost and are rated as failures.
I was lucky enough to run into a comment by (apparently) a Lichess administrator explaining two things : one was that in early stages, puzzles were generated by a second-choice software and that removing older puzzles was more or less impossible. I'm in no position to comment on that, much regretting to be thoroughly unable to make any suggestion.
The second comment gave some useless hope : users rate puzzles, and badly rated puzzles can just be ignored. There are two flaws, and the most obvious is that when you randomly call a puzzle, it pops up without showing its rating.
The less obvious is that an easy, ready-to-use rating should give plus and minus numbers as ratios of number of plays.
Then rises the matter of having players' opinions in the first place, if possible in significant numbers. Maybe with a comment of the type : "This puzzle has not been tested often enough yet to be rated ; please test and rate it" ?
I dearly hope a solution will come soon to clear Lichess of its puzzles problem. Keep up the good work – and thank you very much indeed.