Chess Puzzles

Play and learn how the pros handle complex chess positions. These interactive chess puzzles help you to get better at chess, improve your concentration and learn some new tricks. Most of the positions occurred during famous games between Grandmasters and demonstrate tactical ideas encountered in actual play – no computer analysis here. Careful study of these positions will help you improve your skill in finding good moves and combinations in actual games. You will also learn a great deal about the planning and execution of combinational chess.

Click on any puzzle for details. From there you can solve the puzzle online or select its FEN string and, if you have the full version of SparkChess, paste it in the Board Editor to play from that position. All puzzles have solutions (hidden by default). Don’t forget to comment if you found an alternate (or better) solution!

Use the links on the side (or at the bottom on mobile devices) to see more puzzles. They are sorted in levels to allow everyone to improve their skills.

Chess puzzles are best for when you are idle and bored. They provide a good way to pass time and also improve your concentration, even if you are a beginner or Olympiad master. Learning how to solve these puzzles will improve the knowledge of beginning chess principles – seeing the right move in a position that your opponent overlooked. Our collection of interesting chess positions for online play or trainer mode is unique in that it includes mistakes that were made by top players. Everyone makes mistakes, and studying these common errors is a great way to learn about what not to do!

En-Passant: How it Works

En-Passant is intended to prevent pawns from avoiding being captured when they move two squares. So, if you move the white pawn to d4, it will be captured by en-passant. If you move it to d3, it’s a normal capture.

For Beginners: Mate in Three

Here’s a pretty simple chess puzzle to get you warmed up. White to play and mate in three

Think This Is Too easy?

This situation seems ridiculously easy. The black king is in such a dire situation that deafeat is inevitable – but – can White mate in just three moves?

Promote to Knight

There are cases where an underpromotion would be useful. World Champion Emanuel Lasker presented a position in which White is in serious trouble, that not even a promotion to Queen would solve.

Mate in Three with a Promotion

An interesting puzzle composed by Niels Hoeg in 1905 and featuring promotions: White can mate (win) in three moves. Can you find the right solution?

Mate in Two

In this easy chess puzzle, White can win in just two moves. Can you find the right ones?

Kasparov Mates in 3

This position is from Garry Kasparov vs Elmar Magerramov, USSR, 1982. Kasparov checkmated Elmar in 3 moves. Can you do that?