Solving Chess Puzzles 101

A Very Short Description of Puzzles:

Puzzles are positions that have been created for the sole purpose of finding the best move, or short sequence of moves to continue the game. I say 'created', and by that I mean it could be pulled from a grandmaster game, beginner's game, or even artificially made to be solved. Puzzles on chess.com and lichess.org show which game puzzle was taken from right after you solve the puzzle.

What You Should Know about Themes:

All puzzles have a theme, and many of these themes are basic tactics and theory. Learning basic tactics like pins, skewers, and batteries can boost your performance in the first step of solving puzzles. (We'll come there soon enough.) However themes are not always common tactics, it can be Mate in 2, passed pawn puzzles etc. Puzzles on online platforms also give a puzzle rating, but it does not have to match your ELO. A 500 ELO player can easily solve 1200 rated puzzles if they try [hard] smart enough.

How to Quickly Solve a Chess Puzzle:
1. Do a Quick Evaluation of the Position.

Find strong pieces, files, ranks, diagonals, passed pawns, weak pawns structures, expanded kingside etc. Just random weaknesses of the opponent. Then find your strengths. Next, look for what your opponent is trying for. In the below position, I just randomly placed pieces, but you can evaluate a lot.

• There is a determined attack on black's kingside.
• The black queen is under attack and has no safe squares.
• The g7 pawn is absolutely pinned.
• The queen can capture the h-pawn as the g-pawn is pinned.

These simple inferences will help in the next step.

2. Determine the Likely Objective.

The evaluation is so that you can find the theme or objective. If you find an inflated kingside, and your strong queen on that side, you can guess it's a queen attack. If there's another piece targeting the same place, you can guess it might be mate. Find the motif in the following puzzle if white to play.

Possible themes include taking advantage of an absolute pin, trapped piece (queen), mating net, mate in 3+ etc. Now we have an idea of what we want.

3. Examine Moves That Work: CCT

There are many attacking moves here. So, we use CTT for begginer's. CCT stands for check, capture, threaten.

Look at whether the opponent is giving a check, and then choose a move where the opponent can't try any tactics and where you won't have to endure more unnecessary checks. Then see if you have a safe and productive check. If you are losing, find a check which can force repetition. 

See if you have safe captures which gain material, and weigh the material and positional gains and losses after all consecutive exchanges or captures. Then, chose which capture is best. 

If you don't have a productive check or capture, try to threaten the opponent. It can be a direct or indirect threat. However, mame sure you are not just wasting moves, or givng him time for a better position. Don't threaten in such a way that you lose the tempo immediately next move.

4. Settle on Your Chosen Move.

Now, you have used CCT to find good moves, now from your narrowed pool, settle on one move. Forcing moves, immediate tactics, good mating nets are some examples of moves you might have to compare between.

5. Predict the Opponent's Response. 

Some puzzles are a sequence of moves. Once you find your move, find your opponent's response in the same way, just spending some less time. Then, your response again. Sometimes though, you don't have go calculate all the way in puzzles.

6. Compare Your Answer With the Solution and Study the Solution to the Puzzle.

See if your answer's right. Even if it isn't, see your margin of error. Did you miss the last move, did you get the motif right but moves wrong, did you chose a move without knowing why? Then, remember the pattern, not the position itself. You can ask communities if you still don't get, or directly computer analyse it.

These 6 steps seem very long, but trust me, once you get into the practice, it won't feel like 6 steps, rather just one solution. Also, this is the most reliable method, but a very small amount of puzzles think about defense, and passive advantage. In these cases, this method might not work. Also, as puzzles become advanced, more strategies will come up, and higher rated puzzles are a bit difficult to solve with this method but it will work for most puzzles of chess you see.