Chess Puzzles Explained - Part 1

Chess Puzzles Explained - Part 1

Welcome to my very first blog on Lichess!

I have noticed that a recurring topic in the Forums is people asking for explanations of a puzzle they encountered while doing their tactical exercises here on Lichess.

Many times they will get helpful answers and tips.

Perhaps the most common tip for those struggling to understand what is going on in a specific puzzle is, to analyze it with the engine afterwards and try out moves to see how Stockfish refutes their failed attempts.

This is a very good tip, but especially for beginners it may not always be enough.

Explaining a specific puzzle to a beginner is like giving a hungry person a fish to eat. What I will try to do in this blog is not so much to give away fish, but rather to teach you to catch fish for yourselves.

What I mean by that is, that I will not only go through the puzzles for you move by move, explaining the solution. I will also pay special attention to thought processes.

While I am not a novice myself anymore, I am also far from master level or even from being a strong player. So do take what I say with a grain of salt! I don't teach dogma here. All I will be doing is to give some ideas, tips and thoughts of my own.

Take what you feel is useful to you and feel free to discard the rest.

Before we start with some actual puzzles, I will try to provide you with some general tips to get you started and explain why doing these tactical exercises is good for your improvement in chess.

The benefits of solving chess puzzles

Chess puzzles, besides being entertaining and a fun challenge, serve mostly two purposes. One is to improve your tactical pattern recognition, the other is to sharpen your calculation skills.

Pattern recognition in chess means, that certain constellations of pieces on the board will immediately trigger certain responses in you. Without analyzing or even thinking you just see certain ideas. In my opinion you should not just rush ahead and play this on the board without further thought. Rather you should use it as the basis for your calculation.

What pattern recognition does for you both in puzzles and in practical games of chess is, that it helps you find candidate moves.

You look at a position and you will see which pieces are in possible forking distance for your knights, for example. If you are familiar with the Greek Gift Sacrifice you will immediately add the bishop sacrifice to your list of candidate moves if the position looks anything close to the pattern you have internalized.

Some puzzles, especially the lower rated ones, can be solved quickly and without much calculation. If you know the pattern you just take a look at the board and see the solution. If you are trying to cultivate good chess habits you will at least check if the solution really works. You will calculate what happens if you play your candidate move and you will try to make sure that there is no refutation.

As you get better and puzzles become more challenging you will not always just spot the solution. You can no longer rely on pattern recognition alone, but also need to practice your calculation skills. This is something I see many people underestimate.

Calculating skills are one of the top most important tools you will need in chess! Being good at calculation is much more important than knowing tons of theory.

So please do not shy away from such puzzles and discard them as boring or pointless.

Don't just click them closed thinking "It's useless. I don't see the solution" but try to find it!

In the following paragraph I will provide you with some basic tips on what to do, if you can not immediately recognize any familiar patterns in a chess puzzle.

Tips for solving chess puzzles

So you have a position before you, where it is your move and you know there is a winning tactic, but you do not immediately recognize any familiar patterns. What can you do?

You start looking for candidate moves.

It is usually recommended, that you start looking at all possible checks first, then captures and then threats. This makes sense.

Take your time to get a grasp of what is going on on the board.

Usually the opponent's last move, the one that led to the starting position of the puzzle was a blunder that allowed you to play the tactic you are looking for. It is always a good idea to check out the last move, or last couple of moves, that led to the starting position. Ask yourself, what this move changed in the position. Are there any pieces or squares that are no longer defended?

Tactics don't come out of nowhere. Usually they require piece activity and coordination. And certain weaknesses in your opponents camp.

How is the king safety? Don't waste time winning a pawn or the exchange, when you can go directly for the throat!

Are there any loose pieces? LPDO - Loose Pieces Drop Off! I'm sure you have heard that one before. Undefended or underdefended pieces, that are pieces which are attacked more often than they are defended, are vulnerable to attack.

Are the opponent's king and valuable pieces lined up so they can be skewered?

Are they in a position relative to each other, that will potentially allow a knight fork?

Can you trap an opponents piece? Maybe a greedy queen captures a poisoned pawn on b2/b7? Maybe a rook can be blocked in by pawns? Maybe a bishop can be trapped by pawns in the style of the famous Noah's Ark Trap? Whenever an opponent's piece doesn't have many escape squares you should think about such ideas.

Maybe you can spot something that almost works but not quite. So perhaps you can find a way to make it work. Don't give up on ideas too easily. Do not be discouraged by obstacles; see if you can find a way around them or to remove them.

Is there a way to remove a defender? A deflection sacrifice or an attraction sacrifice perhaps, to lure the king or a piece to a square where you can fork or skewer it? A clearance sacrifice to get a piece out of the way?

Another very important point is not just to look at your own plans and ideas, but also at what the opposing side is trying to do to you! Do not overlook or dismiss counter-threats. Stay safe; keep your guard up!

If you see that your opponent is threatening a checkmate in one for example, you can use this as a hint to know that your move will either defend the checkmate square or remove an attacker or have a forcing counter-attack against the opponent's king that will checkmate him before he gets the chance to do the same to you.

Look at the material balance on the board. If in the starting position of the puzzle you are down a lot of material, you know that you are most likely not just looking for a way to win a pawn or a minor piece. You are looking for a checkmate or at least winning heavy material.

Note that advanced passed pawns can make up for huge material deficits! Especially in endgame type of puzzles they are often a relevant factor.

When exchanging pieces do not so much count the material that leaves the board, but rather look at what remains on the board. Before you trade off a last pair of rooks, ask yourself if the ensuing king and pawn endgame is winning or losing.

If there are knights on the board, always check if any of your opponents important pieces are in forking distance to each other. If not, maybe there is an attraction sacrifice to move the king/queen to a square where it can be forked. Note that the knight always jumps from dark squares to light squares and vice versa. That should give you an idea if you intended targets should be on light or dark squares. For example you have a knight on a dark square, which can jump to a light square from where it attacks dark squares.

Pay attention to move orders and make very precise moves. With the exception of a checkmate in one move you know for sure, that there can not be two equally good solutions in a puzzle. So if two moves seem to be equally good, you know you have to continue looking. Then there is either a different move altogether that is the solution, or one of them is better than the other.

Before you play a move always ask yourself how the opponent can defend against your threat. What will he do? Is there any problem with the move you are about to make? Any possible replies you did not consider?

Do not allow yourself to become lazy, thinking "I'll just play this now... it looks like it's going to work". This approach might work with some lower rated puzzles, but as you move up to the more challenging ones it is not going to do you much good.

Last but not least; do not burn yourself out. Stop for the day when you have had enough. Don't solve puzzles for their rating or to get a set number done in a certain time. Do as many as you are comfortable with and take a rest when you need it.

Do not cheat at puzzles. A high puzzle rating impresses nobody anyway and you don't learn from it so you are just wasting your time. Might as well do something else entirely.

Practical Examples

This blog is already becoming quite long, because of all the introductory remarks and tricks and tips I provided above. So this time I will only give you three practical examples. If there is enough interest from the readers there will be future installments in this series where we can take a look at plenty more.

Before you scroll down to look at the analysis of today's puzzles, please try to solve them for yourself.

Here are the links that will take you directly to the puzzles:

https://lichess.org/training/swLlE
https://lichess.org/training/hjoJ8
https://lichess.org/training/INran

Have fun!

I managed to solve the first two of them, but failed the third. Could you solve them all on your first try? If the answer is "no" please read on for the explanations!

Example 1:

An endgame puzzle with a king and pawns endgame. With the reduced material on the board you can calculate this straight forward, so it is quite solvable. To advanced players the technique to win this type of position should be second nature. Beginners will need to really think this through move by move. If you find it hard to see the solution, ask yourself in what way you can make progress here? What is the goal you are trying to achieve and how can you do it? Do not forget about your opponent and his plans. This is a very unforgiving position with no room for error.

Hint: This is all about passed pawns. How to get one and how to promote it.

Example 2:

A very open position with all the heavy pieces still on the board. The first two moves of the solution are easy to see. It is move three that makes this challenging. Note how at the starting position Black appears to be in trouble himself. If you look at the position you will see that the black rook on f8 is attacked and White is up a pawn, has an advanced passed pawn even. It is fairly clear, that Black is looking for a very forcing continuation. We either have to checkmate or win a lot of material.

I think you will agree, that the motif here is very simple really. For me it was rather difficult to see, to calculate in advance. The problem I faced was, that I always had the thought in mind, that my rook on f8 must remain on the 8th rank to guard against threats of backrank mate. It took me a while to realize, that the rook is more mobile than I first thought. While it is usually good to play careful and guard against threats, we have to understand, that a strong attack is the best defense at some times.

Example 3:

Perhaps the most interesting example today. For me it was the most difficult. It did not take me long to see the winning plan and my idea was good. I also saw the problem that needed to be solved in order to make my solution work, but on move 3 I chose the wrong way to solve that problem and thus failed the puzzle. I blame this on lazy calculation for the most part. It is not so difficult to see, if you take your time and calculate all possible counters and consequences.

One thing this puzzle illustrates above all else is, that the amount of material is often less important than the position and what your pieces and pawns can or cannot do. Passed pawns get more and more valuable the farther they are advanced and often you can give up a piece or more to ensure the promotion of a passed pawn to win the game.

That's all for today! If you would like to see more puzzles explained, let me know by clicking the heart button! Thanks!