Chess Puzzles
Train with chess puzzles on WoodChess: solve tactical positions, start with 1001 Checkmates, explore a large Mate in 2 collection, and sign in to track your progress.
- Tactics
- 1001 Checkmates
- Mate in 2
- Puzzle rating
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What you can practise
Tactics — positions taken from real games where one side has a winning combination to find: forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, deflection. You spot it and play it out.
1001 Checkmates — short forced mates for quick daily practice, the classic collection every club player works through at least once.
Mate in 2 — a large set of two-move mating problems, from straightforward to genuinely hard.
How solving works
Every puzzle starts from a position with a side to move. You have to find the whole line, not only the first move: the opponent answers and you keep going until the combination is finished. A wrong move is rejected and you can try again.
When you would rather just see it, the solution panel replays the full line move by move, and you can step back and forth through the moves with the arrow keys or the navigation buttons.
Difficulty and rating
Every puzzle carries a rating, and so do you. While you are signed in, each solved or failed attempt moves your puzzle rating, and the next position is drawn from a band around your current level rather than picked at random — so the puzzles get harder as you get better instead of staying easy or staying impossible.
Puzzles you have already attempted are excluded from selection, so you keep getting new material instead of the same combination twice in a row.
Solving as a guest
Tactics is open without an account — open the page and start solving, nothing to fill in. 1001 Checkmates and Mate in 2 give you ten free puzzles as a guest. A free account removes that limit and keeps your rating and solving history between visits.