Best move chess puzzles for casual players, Vol 1

100 printable puzzles with answers, one per page.

Puzzles 100 Rating 1200–1600 Format PDF, print or tablet Price Free

What's inside

Vol 1 of Find the best move, Orange belt. You play now and then. 100 puzzles hand-picked from the Lichess open puzzle database, all rated 1200–1600. One move to find, and it isn't checkmate. Fork the king and queen, pin a piece, skewer a rook. Write down your move, then turn the page: the answer shows the whole line, so you see why it works. The step after mate in 1, and it stays hard all the way to Black belt.

Every puzzle gets its own page, with a small grid under the board for writing down your moves. Turn the page and the answer is at the top. The boards are pure black and white, so they print crisp on any printer and read clean on e-ink. Pieces come from Colin M.L. Burnett's open-source chess font.

What is Find the best move?

Each puzzle is a position from a real game where one move wins something. Not checkmate, but close: a fork that hits the king and queen at once, a pin that freezes a piece, a skewer that wins the rook behind the king. You only have to find that first move. The answer shows the whole short line, your move, the reply and your follow-up, so you see exactly what you win.

A step up from mate in 1. In a mate in 1 you know what you're looking for: the king. Here you don't. You look at the whole board and ask what's loose, what's lined up, what can be hit twice. That's the habit that wins real games, and it keeps getting harder all the way to Black belt, long after mate in 1 feels easy.

Too hard? Start with Mate in 1, Orange belt. One move, and you know the goal is checkmate. When those feel easy, come back here.

Print it

Open the PDF and print on A4 or Letter with "fit to page" turned on. Black and white is all you need. Staple the corner and you have a puzzle booklet.

Or solve it on a tablet

The pages are 3:4 portrait, so they fill a reMarkable screen edge to edge. To load one, drag the PDF into the reMarkable web app and it syncs over Wi-Fi. On an iPad, Android tablet, Kindle Scribe or Boox, open it in any PDF app. If your tablet has a pen, write your moves right on the page.

More Find the best move

Same theme, other belts and volumes. Or try a few first on the Find the best move chess puzzles page.

More Orange belt puzzles

Same belt, different themes.

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