| Advanced pawn |
One of your pawns is deep into the opponent position, maybe threatening to promote. |
| Advantage |
Seize your chance to get a decisive advantage. (200cp ≤ eval ≤ 600cp) |
| Anastasia's mate |
A knight and rook or queen team up to trap the opposing king between the side of the board and a friendly piece. |
| Arabian mate |
A knight and a rook team up to trap the opposing king on a corner of the board. |
| Attacking f2 or f7 |
An attack focusing on the f2 or f7 pawn, such as in the fried liver opening. |
| Attraction |
An exchange or sacrifice encouraging or forcing an opponent piece to a square that allows a follow-up tactic. |
| Back rank mate |
Checkmate the king on the home rank, when it is trapped there by its own pieces. |
| Bishop endgame |
An endgame with only bishops and pawns. |
| Boden's mate |
Two attacking bishops on criss-crossing diagonals deliver mate to a king obstructed by friendly pieces. |
| Castling |
Bring the king to safety, and deploy the rook for attack. |
| Capture the defender |
Removing a piece that is critical to defence of another piece, allowing the now undefended piece to be captured on a following move. |
| Crushing |
Spot the opponent blunder to obtain a crushing advantage. (eval ≥ 600cp) |
| Double bishop mate |
Two attacking bishops on adjacent diagonals deliver mate to a king obstructed by friendly pieces. |
| Dovetail mate |
A queen delivers mate to an adjacent king, whose only two escape squares are obstructed by friendly pieces. |
| Equality |
Come back from a losing position, and secure a draw or a balanced position. (eval ≤ 200cp) |
| Kingside attack |
An attack of the opponent's king, after they castled on the king side. |
| Clearance |
A move, often with tempo, that clears a square, file or diagonal for a follow-up tactical idea. |
| Defensive move |
A precise move or sequence of moves that is needed to avoid losing material or another advantage. |
| Deflection |
A move that distracts an opponent piece from another duty that it performs, such as guarding a key square. Sometimes also called "overloading". |
| Discovered attack |
Moving a piece (such as a knight), that previously blocked an attack by a long range piece (such as a rook), out of the way of that piece. |
| Double check |
Checking with two pieces at once, as a result of a discovered attack where both the moving piece and the unveiled piece attack the opponent's king. |
| Endgame |
A tactic during the last phase of the game. |
| En passant |
A tactic involving the en passant rule, where a pawn can capture an opponent pawn that has bypassed it using its initial two-square move. |
| Exposed king |
A tactic involving a king with few defenders around it, often leading to checkmate. |
| Fork |
A move where the moved piece attacks two opponent pieces at once. |
| Hanging piece |
A tactic involving an opponent piece being undefended or insufficiently defended and free to capture. |
| Hook mate |
Checkmate with a rook, knight, and pawn along with one enemy pawn to limit the enemy king's escape. |
| Interference |
Moving a piece between two opponent pieces to leave one or both opponent pieces undefended, such as a knight on a defended square between two rooks. |
| Intermezzo |
Instead of playing the expected move, first interpose another move posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer. Also known as "Zwischenzug" or "In between". |
| Knight endgame |
An endgame with only knights and pawns. |
| Long |
Three moves to win. |
| Master games |
Puzzles from games played by titled players. |
| Master vs Master games |
Puzzles from games between two titled players. |
| Checkmate |
Win the game with style. |
| Mate in 1 |
Deliver checkmate in one move. |
| Mate in 2 |
Deliver checkmate in two moves. |
| Mate in 3 |
Deliver checkmate in three moves. |
| Mate in 4 |
Deliver checkmate in four moves. |
| Mate in 5 or more |
Figure out a long mating sequence. |
| Middlegame |
A tactic during the second phase of the game. |
| One-move puzzle |
A puzzle that is only one move long. |
| Opening |
A tactic during the first phase of the game. |
| Pawn endgame |
An endgame with only pawns. |
| Pin |
A tactic involving pins, where a piece is unable to move without revealing an attack on a higher value piece. |
| Promotion |
Promote one of your pawn to a queen or minor piece. |
| Queen endgame |
An endgame with only queens and pawns. |
| Queen and Rook |
An endgame with only queens, rooks and pawns. |
| Queenside attack |
An attack of the opponent's king, after they castled on the queen side. |
| Quiet move |
A move that does neither make a check or capture, nor an immediate threat to capture, but does prepare a more hidden unavoidable threat for a later move. |
| Rook endgame |
An endgame with only rooks and pawns. |
| Sacrifice |
A tactic involving giving up material in the short-term, to gain an advantage again after a forced sequence of moves. |
| Short |
Two moves to win. |
| Skewer |
A motif involving a high value piece being attacked, moving out the way, and allowing a lower value piece behind it to be captured or attacked, the inverse of a pin. |
| Smothered mate |
A checkmate delivered by a knight in which the mated king is unable to move because it is surrounded (or smothered) by its own pieces. |
| Super GM games |
Puzzles from games played by the best players in the world. |
| Trapped piece |
A piece is unable to escape capture as it has limited moves. |
| Underpromotion |
Promotion to a knight, bishop, or rook. |
| Very long |
Four moves or more to win. |
| X-Ray attack |
A piece attacks or defends a square, through an enemy piece. |
| Zugzwang |
The opponent is limited in the moves they can make, and all moves worsen their position. |
| Healthy mix |
A bit of everything. You don't know what to expect, so you remain ready for anything! Just like in real games. |
| Player games |
Lookup puzzles generated from your games, or from another player's games. |
| Puzzle download information |
These puzzles are in the public domain, and can be downloaded from %s. |
