puzzle purposes

The hardest thing about the puzzles for me - apart from the fact I’m generally rubbish - is that it’s not always clear what I’m supposed to be aiming for.

Obviously “Improve Your Position” is the general goal, but it’s hard to see what this desired improvement looks like. Quite often I’ll end up taking the hint or asking for the solution, and I think “Ok... so why would I do that?”

I don’t do puzzles atm but the traditional method seems to be something like:

- look at checks, captures, and threats for both white and black, paying special attention to any forcing moves
- using that info create a list of candidate moves
- step through each candidate move, reassess checks, captures, and threats for the next move, and repeat until the best solution seems obvious (puzzles aren’t usually too vague from what I’ve seen)

So it’s like working your way down the branches of a tree.

Hope that helps some.

Thanks, Alex! 👍

i would think of the goal of the puzzle being to win material or get a checkmate rather than simply just improving your position. looking for "forcing moves" is good advice

OMG today’s puzzle is a case in point. Not one single move makes sense to me. Sacrifice your queen so that you can take their queen three moves later IF they move exactly how you intend them to? I just don’t get it.

All puzzles ask you getting those materials in order of priority, in getting

1. King

2. Queen

3. Rook

4. Minors.

The solution is rarely winning a pawn/s , unless in endgame where the pawn has potential of queening. 

 

e.g If there is a chance of getting a king (checkmate) but your answer is getting a rook, you failed.

yeah but with that puzzle you are not just retaking the queen. you capture a bunch of extra material along the way. the reason the moves don't make sense is because there are a lot of tacticsand threats going in the background. for example, whites knight and bishop on f5 and h6 were threatening mate which limited the options for blacks queen towards the end of the sequence. even if they seem random, your opponent always makes the best possible response in the puzzle sequence. it would probably help to start with lower rated puzzles that are easier to break down so you can develop your tactical vision. that puzzle was pretty overwhelming for me, but it should basically at least make sense if you decontruct the solution.

 

Hi Petwr

Hi Peter. The solutions to puzzles are normally check mate or material advantage in the fewest moves. It helps to understand the idea of forcing moves (see chess.com lessons) and have a basic knowledge of calculation, checkmate patterns and tactic patterns such as skewers, pins, etc. If the puzzle is too hard for your ability then you will struggle so try starting with learning puzzles on the lowest rating. The simplest puzzles are 1 or 2 move pattern recognition but as the rating increases so does the number of moves (tactical depth) and difficulty, then you need to start calculating. Puzzles are a great way to improve your chess as they develop your calculation, visualisation skills and tactical knowledge but you need to start at a level that reflects your ability. Turn down the rating if you dont understand what you see.

Sometimes it can be about not making your position any worse and maintaining or reaching equality.

As some have mentioned, calculating (vision) is the only way to solve. The game I posted was where the puzzle came from and the 2100+ player didn't "see"/"solve" it either.

You might start out by writing things down, even though you can't do that in a game, to establish a process.

Threats (forcing moves) from most to least forcing. All checks, all captures, all pressure (threat to capture) and all tension (threat to capture but can also be captured) moves, in that order.

Using the hints isn't going to help you unless you absolutely can't figure it out using your process. You shouldn't be guessing move to move. You should reach your best answer (as far as you can) before even attempting the first move. The ultimate goal is to not have to write anything down or move any pieces (real board or virtual) and be able to visualize all of your variations.

You may want to also look at the original position and give the opponent a free move to find immediate threats that need to be addressed.