Random chess puzzles with the pattern withheld
Every other page here tells you what to look for before you start. This one refuses, and the refusal is the entire exercise.
- 120 positions in the course
- Difficulty 404–2321
- Section: Blind Spots
- 5 levels
Why an unlabelled puzzle is a different skill
A puzzle headed "find the fork" trains half of what you need. It builds the pattern, which is genuinely valuable, and it hands you the search term for free. Over the board nothing hands you the search term. The gap between solving a labelled fork and finding the same fork in your own game is enormous, and it is not closed by doing more labelled forks.
These 120 positions are drawn from the same Lichess pool as the rest of the course and deliberately mixed: sixty of them are middlegames and sixty are endgames, the rating range runs from beginner to strong club player, and the themes underneath include forks, deflections, discovered attacks, mates in one and quiet defensive moves. You are not told which is which because the naming is the part being trained.
How to spot it
- Run the same list every time, in the same order: every check, every capture, every threat, then every loose piece on both sides.
- Do the opponent's side of the list too. Roughly half of what you miss in a real game is their idea, not yours.
- When nothing jumps out, ask which of your pieces is doing the least. The answer is often the piece the solution moves.
- Name the pattern out loud once you find it. Attaching the word is what makes the next one faster.
Three positions with nothing announced
Three positions from the 120 in this skill, easiest first. The highlighted squares are the move your opponent has just played. Work it out before you open the answer.
Position 1
White to move. Find the best move.
Show the answer
41...dxe2 42.Rd8#
The line ends in checkmate. Nothing about the position tells you which pattern is in it, which is the only difference between this and a labelled puzzle.
The position comes from an endgame of a real game, rated 404 for difficulty. The answer reaches checkmate.
Position 2
Black to move. Find the best move.
Show the answer
17.Nxc7 17...Qxe2#
The line ends in checkmate. Nothing about the position tells you which pattern is in it, which is the only difference between this and a labelled puzzle.
The position comes from the middlegame of a real game, rated 1346 for difficulty. The answer reaches checkmate.
Position 3
White to move. Find the best move.
Show the answer
27...Qf7 28.Qxf7 Rxf7 29.Rxd6
The line wins a piece. Nothing about the position tells you which pattern is in it, which is the only difference between this and a labelled puzzle.
The position comes from an endgame of a real game, rated 1898 for difficulty. The answer reaches a clear advantage.
Building the habit so it survives a real game
The reason a checklist works is that it does not depend on inspiration. Under time pressure, in a position you find uncomfortable, the thing that still functions is a routine you have run a thousand times. That is why the list matters more than any single pattern on this site.
The measurable version of progress here is not the solve rate. It is how long it takes before you notice something. If you are finding the answer but only after ninety seconds, the pattern exists and the recognition does not, and the fix is more repetitions rather than harder puzzles.
Questions people ask
What is the point of chess puzzles with no theme given?
They train recognition rather than execution. Knowing what a fork looks like and spotting that this position contains one are two different skills, and only the second one is used in a game.
Should beginners do untagged puzzles?
Do both. Labelled puzzles are how a pattern gets learned in the first place, so a beginner should spend most of the time there. Mixing in unlabelled sets stops the labels becoming a crutch.
How many chess puzzles a day is useful?
Ten to twenty, done consistently, beats a large session once a week by a wide margin. Pattern recognition is built by spaced repetition, and the second hour of a puzzle session is much less productive than the first.
Nearby patterns
Unlabelled Puzzles sits in Blind Spots. The rest of that section: