Find the move
One position, one question, and a coach who explains the answer and prices the alternatives. The positions come from the classics, from model training setups, and from collections other players have assembled, and every solution has been checked against Stockfish: the move we ask for is also the move the engine plays. Solve them on the board, not in your head; the hand remembers.
26 positions across 6 themes
Start with Diagram 1Open Lines
Rooks and queens do nothing until a file or diagonal opens for them. These positions all turn on the same question: which pawn move or capture opens lines for my pieces, and what is that worth?
Invasion Squares
A piece is worth what its square lets it do. These positions each contain one square that wants a piece on it: a hole no pawn can cover, an outpost the opponent conceded, a landing strip for the attack.
4 · White
The hole in front of the pawn
Model position
5 · White
A knight on the sixth
Steinitz vs von Bardeleben, Hastings 1895
6 · Black
Kicked forward
Rotlewi vs Rubinstein, Łódź 1907
7 · White
The square the knight guards
Positional Chess Puzzles
8 · White
The centre shuts, a square opens
Positional Chess Puzzles
The Decisive Moment
Positional play earns a position where a combination exists; someone still has to play it. Each of these positions is fully prepared, every piece aimed. Find the move that cashes out twenty moves of preparation.
Endgame Geometry
With few pieces left, chess becomes geometry: the king's path, the square of the pawn, the one file the rook must own. These classics are each a single geometric idea, and each is worth a hundred games.
Prophylaxis
The hardest move to find is the one that does nothing for you. These positions all have a plan running on the other side of the board, and the move that wins is the one that takes it away before it arrives. Ask what your opponent wants, then make it impossible.
Your Worst Piece
Find your worst piece and improve it, the old rule goes, and most of the work in a quiet position is exactly that: a rook on the wrong file, a knight with nowhere to go, a bishop staring at its own pawns. The last position here turns the rule around and takes the opponent's best piece away instead.
22 · Black
The file worth standing on
Positional Chess Puzzles
23 · Black
The long way round to the right square
Positional Chess Puzzles
24 · White
The long diagonal, blocked for now
Positional Chess Puzzles
25 · Black
Whose trade is it
Positional Chess Puzzles
26 · White
The knight is ready, the queen is not
Positional Chess Puzzles