Daily Chess Puzzles

[integral]

@LastThursday @Jannes

Those are some good ideas, but there's a very key brilliant move in the position, it's that move that when you see it you get the "AHA moment" it all clicks

On 12/18/2025 at 9:39 AM, integral said:

OK guys ONE PUZZLE A DAY.

========================== puzzle 2 =============================

White to move, find the best move. 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by integral

[Joshe]

On 12/17/2025 at 7:07 AM, Leo Gura said:

I saw the queen sac as the first move to try.

That's only because you know that when you're presented with puzzles like "black to move and win" the solution is almost always counter-intuitive, otherwise it wouldn't make for a good puzzle. So you relied on a heuristic that doesn't exist in real games.

Not so easy to find when the clock is ticking and you don't know you have mate in 2. 

Edited 9 hours ago by Joshe

[Joshe]

On 12/18/2025 at 9:39 AM, integral said:

OK guys ONE PUZZLE A DAY.

========================== puzzle 2 =============================

White to move, find the best move. 

The position is probably close to equal if you move rook to e3 because black just moves pawn to d5, not only defending the knight but cutting off white's bishop mobility.

You have to take night first then rook e3. Queen can't retreat and protect rook on e8, so you gobble up the cookie and make the chicken run to h7. Then black is down a rook and black's bishop can't come out without losing the other rook and the f7 pawn is weak and the entire position for black has collapsed. 

Could also calculate the line knight takes knight, sac the bishop on f7 check, queen h5 check. Stopping there because too much calculation but could be something there. Probably not. Black could just decline the sac. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Joshe

[Jannes]

6 minutes ago, Joshe said:

The position is probably close to equal if you move rook to e3 because black just moves pawn to d5, not only protecting the knight but cutting off white's bishop mobility.

You have to take night first then rook e3. Queen can't retreat and protect rook on e8, so you gobble up the cookie and make the chicken run to h7. Then black is down a rook and black's bishop can't come out without losing the other rook and the f7 pawn is weak and the entire position for black has collapsed. 

You found it!! 🥳

[Joshe]

This guy has a good idea: 

Rather than doing random daily puzzles, stick to a set of roughly 100–300 tactical motif puzzles and use spaced-repetition software like Anki to drill them until they become second nature.

Eventually, the patterns just show up without conscious processing, like magic. 

Pattern-recognition takes much longer if just keep doing random puzzles. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

On 12/18/2025 at 6:39 AM, integral said:

OK guys ONE PUZZLE A DAY.

========================== puzzle 2 =============================

White to move, find the best move. 

I would grab the black knight with white's knight, then pin black's queen with the white rook at E3.

Black should be in a very bad spot after that.

Edited 8 hours ago by Leo Gura