See
lichess_puzzle_activity_history_eda.ipynbfor more details.
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| Interactive version available here. | Interactive version available here. |
We created puzzle_rating_history_df from the tclark_puzzle_rating_history_clean.csv data processed in puzzle_journey_data_collection_processing.ipynb.
We also combined the year, month, and day columns into a single date column.
We created puzzle_activity_df from the tclark_puzzle_activity_clean.csv data processed in puzzle_journey_data_collection_processing.ipynb.
Note that I played 1,716 puzzles between February 2022 and March 2023.
Finally, we took a subset of the full puzzles_df consisting of just the puzzles that I played.
We dropped the Rating column—since many of the puzzle ratings have changed since I played the puzzles, I chose to keep their rating at the time I played them (which is stored in the puzzleRating column of puzzle_activity_df).
Below is a visualization of my rating over time.
My rating fluctuated a lot, with an approximately 4-month plateau in the 1,700--1,900 range from mid-May 2022 through August 2022, followed by a climb over 2,000 in September 2022 through about mid-October 2022. I plateaued again aroung 2,000--2,100 for almost 3 months, after which I had another spike in progress up to 2,500.
Overall, it seems I have gone through a cycle that looks something like
1--2months of improvement.3--4months of plateau.
The figure below considers my rating broken into 6 segements each containing an approximately equal number of days. Observe the plateaus from July 2022 to September 2022 and from mid-October 2022 through January 2023.
We can compare my rating history to the volume of puzzles played per day, as visualized here.
Again, around mid-October 2022 I plateaued in rating. About a month later, I decided to change my strategy. I started taking as long as necessary to solve a puzzle—I no longer attempted a puzzle until I was essentially certain of its solution.
Working for about 20 minutes at a time, I would sometimes take several days on a single puzzle (luckily, lichess keeps track of which puzzle you're on). This meant I played fewer rated puzzles, but it also meant I almost always got them correct, as you can see with my win rate starting in mid-November 2022.
After taking a break in ealry December, I finally overcame the 2,100 rating barrier. My rating continued to improve as I continued to successfully solve puzzles. Around March 2023, I also began playing easy unrated puzzles in between the more difficult rated puzzles, so the volumes on the graph may be a bit misleading, since I was only completing a rated puzzle once every couple of days.
Whether all of this resulted in me learning more about tactics is debatable, but it did have a noticeable impact on improving my puzzle rating. Ultimately, if you're looking for the secret to improving your puzzle rating, my advice is simply
Keep getting puzzles correct!
Taking as long as necessary meant I played fewer puzzles, but I almost always got them right—so my rating kept going up! My highest rating was 2,510, achieved in late-February 2023. This is in the 96th percentile of puzzle ratings.
The take-as-long-as-it-takes strategy is, admittedly, time-consuming and mentally draining. I'm a mathematician, so I'm accustomed to being stuck on a single problem for days (or even years) at a time. Nonetheless, I started playing the easier unrated puzzles as a fun distraction since the rated ones had become so challenging. I'm not sure at the moment if I want to continue trying to push my rating as high as possible or go back to just playing puzzles for fun.
Tuesday appears to be my best puzzle-playing day.
I probably need to work on longer puzzles and endgame puzzles.
Perhaps I should consider playing the French_Defense more often.
