What is wrong with the puzzles section lately - at least half of the "problems" I attempt are pure crap, dumping one side into a horrendously inbalanced position with only marginal material gain (or, worse still, the required move order is flat out wrong).
Cant there be some sort of quality control in place, at the very least delete any puzzles that do not reach a certain positive feedback within their first week so that they are not wasting space and time - a good tactic needs to lead to a clear cut winning position with no uncertainty (at least to a competent player)
I don't think this is spam.
I agree.
It's frustrating when you are awarded a "fail" when it's simply a move order that disagrees with the solution but makes no difference to the outcome, or where two very similar moves (perhaps to one of a pair of adjacent squares along a rank, file or diagonal) and which have exactly the same outcome must be chosen between by chance rather than merit.
Ok. Please give an example an example of a problem with a "flat out wrong" solution.
I want proof of what they say
I will go and hunt for a few, but they are definitely there. As far as I am concerned, ANY puzzle that does not end in a mate or comprehensively won position is a failure on the part of the "composer"
It didnt take me too long to find a bad one :
Puzzle 61848
Solution leaves a position with a queen vs 3 pieces - that is unacceptable, as it still requires careful technique to actually convert to a full point. If I could vote it right down to 0 I would have, but hopefully it will get blasted soon enough
In regards to puzzle 61848
Computer gives me an evaluation of -3.6
"a good tactic needs to lead to a clear cut winning position with no uncertainty (at least to a competent player) "
>competent player
Edit:
Sure, you may say computer evaluation isn't everything, so just for fun, I turned off the engine and played about 5 natural looking moves on both sides, then checked engine again. I didn't make any blunders or mistakes, and I still had a favourable evaluation.
Any competent player could see that 3 pieces is superior to a queen in this position. Everything can be defended, queen can be harassed, connect rooks, etc.
Now, I know there are definitely bad puzzles out there, but I can't help but wonder about these other "at least half" of the puzzles that you disapprove of.
What I think happened is that you got bumped into a higher puzzle bracket, and you are struggling with "at least half of" them.
Keep working at them. Do what I did. Run through some moves and see what happens. If you can't see why a position like this is favourable, I don't think the puzzles are the problem.
There is nothing wrong with that puzzles. You have to play only moves, otherwise you get mated.
Your definition of what a puzzle is and should be is just wrong.
I like most of the puzzles on this site. I've only seen 2 puzzles that I can remember having multiple solutions.
I do see some bad puzzles, though, which I downvote, but it's not that many. Maybe 1 out of every 20-30 puzzles I downvote. I've played over 14 hundred puzzles on this website.