Chess Puzzles

How to solve a chess puzzle

Each puzzle starts one move before the key moment. The board shows the position, your opponent makes a move, and then it is your turn. The line next to the board tells you which side you play, and the board is turned so your pieces are at the bottom. Find the best move by dragging a piece, or tap the piece and then tap the square. If the puzzle needs more than one move, the opponent answers automatically and you keep going until the combination is complete.

A wrong move is taken back so you can try again. Hint marks the piece that should move, Show solution plays the whole line with arrows, and Retry puts the puzzle back at the start. Promotions open a small picker so you can choose a queen, rook, bishop or knight.

A simple routine that works

1. Checks, captures, threats. List every check first, then every capture, then moves that threaten something big. The answer is almost always in that list.
2. Look at what the last move changed. Your opponent's move often leaves a piece undefended, opens a line or walks the king into danger.
3. Find the loose pieces. An undefended piece, or a king with no escape squares, is a target.
4. Calculate the reply. Before you move, ask what the best answer is. If you cannot see a good answer for your opponent, play it.

Tactics themes explained

• Mate in 1, 2 or 3: force checkmate in that many of your moves, whatever the defender does. In mate in 2 and 3, the first move is often a quiet move or a sacrifice that takes away escape squares.
• Back-rank mate: a rook or queen mates a king trapped on its first rank by its own pawns.
• Fork: one piece attacks two targets at once. Knights are famous for it, but pawns, queens and even kings can fork.
• Pin: a piece cannot move because a more valuable piece (or the king) stands behind it on the same line.
• Skewer: the reverse of a pin. The valuable piece is in front, it has to move, and the piece behind it falls.
• Discovered attack: moving one piece uncovers an attack by another piece on the same line. When the uncovered attack is a check, it is a discovered check.
• Hanging piece: something is simply left unprotected. Take it, but check that the capture is safe.
• Deflection: force a defender away from the square or piece it is guarding.
• Sacrifice: give up material on purpose to get something bigger, such as mate or a winning attack.
• Endgame: few pieces are left. Pawn promotion, king activity and exact counting matter most.

Choosing a level

Start with Beginner and the mate themes if you are new to puzzles; mate in 1 teaches you to see how pieces cover squares around the king. Move up when you solve most puzzles on the first try. Solving many easier puzzles fast builds pattern memory better than staring at a few very hard ones. When you want to use those patterns in a real game, play chess against the computer and look for the same ideas. If you like this kind of thinking, sudoku is another good daily habit.

About the puzzles

The puzzles were taken from the Lichess open puzzle database, which is published in the public domain (CC0). We kept only puzzles that players rated highly and that were played at least a thousand times, so the solutions are well tested.