Telling a solver what needs to be done would take much of the challenge away, and make puzzles even less realistic than they are now. A common observation is that people will try moves in a puzzle that they wouldn't consider in a game, because they know that "something's there". Being told where you need to go would be just too big a hint.

And that's why I like the occasional--very occasional--spoiler as well. The point of these puzzles is to analyze carefully to find the best move, and a person who sloppily assumes a move is right "because it's a puzzle" will learn something important. "No answer" is also an important answer.

POTD is a great feature, its enjoyable & a good learning tool as well. If you fail or succeed it doesn't matter, just the applied effort of trying to solve the puzzle has a beneficial effect on your game.

Having a points system inevitably means a leader board, & then what? a big fat cyber-pat on the back for the winner every month/year? There's ample competition in chess already, POTD is a one person event, something you can do by yourself for yourself outside of the competitive arena.

Are points needed by the solver so they know how well they are doing? or are the points a way of showing other users how well YOU are doing? (@#$%* hell! have you seen the size of his....score)

LTJ

The problem is not that the daily puzzle lacks being a good tool for learning as it is now. Of course not - the daily puzzle has helped me throughout the years become a stronger player. I am proof positive that the daily puzzle is a tremendous and valuable resource for Chess improvement!

This said, the truth is that by <CG> having a couple of sentences on their daily puzzle each day stating what the correct solution(s) is/are, that this will not detract from what we have going on right now with the daily puzzle. In fact, it will only enhance what we have going on right now.

No-one is forced to participate in the correct answer system: If they want to post their solution and make the claim that they found the <correct answer/netted the full point> they can still do so; but at least there will be an objective standard there, with <CG>'s official endorsement, to provide an objective correct solution(s) and to confirm what it is that <CG> wanted for the solver to find.

This will make for an improvement to the daily puzzle feature - something which adds interest to daily puzzle feature; not something that detracts from it.

LTJ

As for Zukertort vs Englisch, 1883, I'll apologize if I was mistaken but I reviewed the whole thread and you do seem quite in love with your move, refusing to accept that the game continuation was stronger even after computers showed that was the case:

<LoveThatJoker: Very cool! A Zukertort puzzle! Very tough puzzle.

The best I can find here is

<47. Nb4!?>

(47. Qb5 Qxb5 48. c8=Q+ Kf7 49. Qxe6+ Kxe6 50. Nc7+ and 51. Nxb5 looks weaker to me [...])>

<LoveThatJoker: This is a bad puzzle. The more I give the position resulting after 47. Qb5 Qxb5 48. c8=Q+ Kf7 49. Qxe6+ Kxe6 50. Nc7+ and 51. Nxb5 to Stockfish the more resources it finds to keep serious drawing chances alive.

I mean, can I claim the full point for spotting the game continuation, but not going with it due to the fact that it leads to at best as <TheaN> said a evaluation, when White can probably find more?>

<RandomVisitor: [in the game continuation] Rybka 4.1 x64:

[+2.88] d=28>

<Pawn and Two: <LoveThatJoker> In your variation 47.Nb4 Qd7 48.Na6, did you find a winning continuation? White is better, but after 48...Qd2+ 49.Kh3 Qd7, the ending looks very difficult to win.>

<LoveThatJoker: <Pawn and Two> Stockfish confirmed my idea that 48. Na6 is the best try to avoid repetition after 48. Nd5 Qc6 - if White does not wish to go into the game continuation that is.

I cannot possibly disagree with you when you say that the ending is difficult to win as it also is with the actual game continuation. Your message to me just adds credence to my argument that this is not the best puzzle for a White to play and win scenario.>

Then you actually started to get personal when <Pawn and Two> again suggested your move might not have been quite as good as Zukertort's:

<LoveThatJoker: <Pawn and Two> Your references to Fritz in a puzzle position played between two humans - although correct in the sense that you are seeking out the objective truth, and appreciated in that I too am for the objective truth - has no bearing on the best practical tries in the position.

To say that Zukertort's combination is the correct answer to the puzzle to the exclusion of Nb4 just because the computer finds drawing chances at 25/26/27 ply analysis, is not taking into the account the practical component of the game.

If you yourself were on the White side playing this game, there is no way in hell you would see as much as Fritz sees. So, instead of criticizing the work both 7cman and I put in on a good practical try, just try your hand at solving these puzzles on a regular basis and posting your solutions on here like everybody else.

If you decline to do so, then that's your prerogative. But don't come here with your cowardice (hiding behind computer analysis and basing your gutless conclusions on it) and pass judgement on the work that I'm doing; as I am putting in the effort day-in and day-out and I am objectively doing an excellent job as it relates to establishing practical winning tries in the puzzle positions.>

My recomendations to <CG> regarding the daily puzzle are so as to improve this feature from both the technical point of view, and the social-interaction point of view.

LTJ

PS. This Zukertort vs Englisch, 1883 puzzle proves that I am qualified to assist <CG> in the improving of both the technical and social elements of the daily puzzle; as both <Pawn and Two> and I are now on respectful terms.

This can be clearly seen by reading the final exchange between him and I, which you did not include in your last post to me, from this very same Zukertort puzzle:

<<>May-31-12 Pawn and Two: <LTJ> Thanks for your kind reply. Your points are well taken. I should have used my original wording of reviewing the puzzle. I did not intend to indicate that I had solved it. I did spend a fair amount of time on a determining a plan for the first few moves, but only that far. I hope to see more of your original thinking on this puzzle site.

May-31-12
LoveThatJoker: <Pawn and Two> Thank you for being kind - I appreciate it! A friend in Chess, LTJ>

You all bring up several interesting points.

First, let me address the main point of LTJ's posts, <It's time for a change - it's time for a standard and a more responsible attitude towards the daily puzzles in general.> We're never against change for the better. In fact, we are in the process of training a new employee who will be preoccupied largely with daily puzzles, analysis of the solutions, more accurately grading them from Mon-Sun, etc.

However, some traditions are going to stay, and spoilers are one of them. I'm sure you've heard that the idea behind the spoiler (not that we invented the concept) is to try to make the solving of a puzzle a little more like a real game. When you are playing chess and you strive to find a winning shot, there is no guarantee that the winning shot even exists. Perhaps your intuition tells you "there must be a combination in here somewhere!" but sometimes intuition steers us wrong. Spoilers are supposed to simulate that experience. I can understand why they can be so frustration. In our defense, we use them very rarely (although we've had at least two this month).

The "Sunday Spoiler" is even a more rare beast, but in today's case Nunn vs Csom, 1977 we thought it rose to the level of Sunday because the specific defense that refutes the siren-call-sacrifice was so hard to see. I'm very sorry if you feel that you wasted your time trying to find a win, but now that you know that "no answer" is always a possible answer perhaps in the future you'll reach that conclusion and even feel satisfied by it.

Now about us stating for all readers what the winning move(s) is(are) and what defenses should have been anticipated etc. for gaining the full "points" — Switching is correct when he says that points are an invention of our fans, although occasionally we do make a post to explain the validity (or unsoundness) of an alternate solution. But that's not the problem. The problem with us being the ones to proclaim the correct solution(s) is simple: we don't necessarily know it!

The case you brought up with the recent Monday puzzle is a good example. We had no idea that the ...Re7 defense was so thorny. It appeared to us (and many members) that Qxc4 was a simple removal of the guard from which Black could not escape. If we didn't believe that, we wouldn't have slated it for Monday.

You haven't been around long enough to remember the days when we used to say "Black to play and win" or "White to play and draw" and so forth. The problem with these assertions is that from time to time we'd be proved wrong. So in a way, "Find the best move" is a kind of a cop-out: it's our way of admitting that we don't guarantee to even know the answer ourselves. On the other hand, it's a legitimate cop-out. The best chess companies and authors throughout history have produced volumes of chess puzzles where only a fraction of their puzzles are as clear-cut as the author intended. Take any puzzle book prior to 1980 and "proofread it" with a strong computer engine. You will find that rarely are things as simple as they believed in the pre-computer era. And I'm talking serious analysts here—Informant has analysis by David Bronstein, Mikhail Tal, you name it. And yet a huge number of their puzzles have flaws when held to the light of modern computers.

So if David Bronstein can't be trusted to come up with water-tight analysis, who are we to claim to know the answers? Of course we also use computers to verify puzzles, but we will never be able to replicate the large-scale effort that takes place every day when the daily puzzle is dissected.

<<>CG: First, let me address the main point of LTJ's posts, <It's time for a change - it's time for a standard and a more responsible attitude towards the daily puzzles in general.> We're never against change for the better. In fact, we are in the process of training a new employee who will be preoccupied largely with daily puzzles, analysis of the solutions, more accurately grading them from Mon-Sun, etc.>

I hope the addition of this new contributor/employee proves to be a great success for your enterprise and this site!

As it relates to,

<Spoilers> I sincerely hope they get rarer and rarer, guys - even if you perceive this as simply my opinon, I think it will be for the better of this site.

<Points> Once again, my usage of the term 'gaining the full point' is simply a substitute for 'finding the correct answer'. Not as the start of a CG-sponsored points rating system.

Finally in regards to <<>CG: ...although occasionally we do make a post to explain the validity (or unsoundness) of an alternate solution. But that's not the problem. The problem with us being the ones to proclaim the correct solution(s) is simple: we don't necessarily know it!

The case you brought up with the recent Monday puzzle is a good example. We had no idea that the ...Re7 defense was so thorny. It appeared to us (and many members) that Qxc4 was a simple removal of the guard from which Black could not escape. If we didn't believe that, we wouldn't have slated it for Monday.>

All I can say (as I esteem this site for being a helpful resource in my chess improvement throughout the years) is that with the contributor/employee you now have coming in, that us members who care about this site will see the daily puzzle be treated with more TLC, guys.

Don't forget that the daily puzzle is literally at the <heart> of the site!

A friend in Chess and long-time member of chessgames.com,

Chess is not sudoku. It was quite legitimate - even quite normal - for a real life chess position to have more than one good or winning move. And more than one losing move.

These are not puzzles with one "correct" solutions. They are real positions from real games, with all the glorious uncertainty and complexity that entails.

So that means that we will get the occasional glitch where a puzzle is more complicated than we first thought. Great! That's just like a real game.

Very simply, chess - like life - has a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Mentally, OTB ... you must be prepared for this. Nothing is assumed, NOTHING is taken for granted!

You know that they will throw you a curve ball once in a while, I myself spent 15 minutes (or more) vainly searching for a win that I could not find ... only to discover that I was probably correct, and that taking on h7 (while tempting) was nothing more than a blind alley.

I often explore many such pathways of analysis during an actual game ... one of my biggest weaknesses is to spend all of my time exploring a tempting sacrifice, only to discover it may not be worth the trouble ...

I'm reminded of Radjabov's analysis of Shirov vs Radjabov, 2007, when an audience member suggested some move and he said something like "sadistic position, no need to look at it during the game."

Then of course there would be no "correct" solution. But the discussion would be rich and I am sure that much learning would be had.

<<>CG: First, let me address the main point of LTJ's posts, <It's time for a change - it's time for a standard and a more responsible attitude towards the daily puzzles in general.> We're never against change for the better. In fact, we are in the process of training a new employee who will be preoccupied largely with daily puzzles, analysis of the solutions, more accurately grading them from Mon-Sun, etc.>

This discussion has become more demonstrative of a lack of open-mindedness and manual understanding, if you will, of what has been happening on the daily puzzle as of late. And really, I'm just glad that <CG> has taken note of my concerns regarding the daily puzzle feature:

I take pride in the fact that I make the strongest possible efforts to show up day-in/day-out to solve the puzzles, type my solutions and post them: This is the hardest thing to do on the daily puzzle page.

I can express an opinion on any other page, but on the daily puzzle page, it is about who <can> and who <wants> to make an effort to demonstrate their Chess strength, objectivity and practical handle of the game.

Of course, posters are welcome to come in and type a bunch of rubbish stories/ancecdotes/conversation, but in reality what makes the daily puzzle interesting from a Chess point of view are the ideas expressed in Chess notation pertaining to the puzzle position.

This said, even when you have the posters who just like to talk on there, that's alright too: There is a social component to the daily puzzle, and I respect/celebrate that and the diversity that comes with it!

Thanks for the good times on here and I will see you on the daily puzzle!

:)

A friend in Chess,