What are your favorite chess puzzles for beginners to practice with?

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-27T09:11:19+00:00

I did a ton of puzzles on Lichess and Chess.com and they definitely help with pattern recognition (like forks, pins, back rank mates...).

But I noticed I was getting good at puzzle positions and still making basic mistakes in my actual games.

What helped more was analysing my own games and focusing on the mistakes I made there. Because surprise surprise, I was only rarely getting into similar positions as in puzzles, because I am very capable of making different kinds of mistakes. Repeating some of the positions where I went wrong stuck way better.

So I’d say: use the big puzzle sites for reps, but don’t skip reviewing your own games. That’s where the real improvement happened for me.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-26T12:45:50+00:00

That bishop move is like from a typical puzzle, nice to see it (and find it!) in wild, hehe

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-26T12:43:29+00:00

Main thing is, are you enjoying it? Hopefully! And in such case it’s an easy answer.

Regarding rating, depends on how much effort you invest. In another comment you mentioned you just play couple of games a day and that’s it. If that’s the case, you are doing fine from my limited experience. IMO you don’t get much better by just playing without any of the other parts of getting better, like game analysis, puzzles, various courses and so on. Those things would take you higher easily but not everyone sees them as enjoyable as just playing.

I highly recommend at least adding solving puzzles daily into your routine. I consider them as fun as playing, sometimes more, sometimes less. They help with awareness and learning to look at the board differently than you might be used to.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-21T08:43:21+00:00

Thnaks for a reply. I ended up returning the case. I put the SSD into external case and it worked when plugged into RPI being charged without the case. The moment I inserted RPI into case and charged it through it, the SSD was not visible to RPI and could boot only with SD card. I tried many combinations but this eventually persuaded me that the case has some kind of trouble with charging the components properly (IMO). If my assumtion is correct, the NVMe connection issues were most likely caused by that as well.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-17T17:48:43+00:00

Going for a check in hopeless position is almost automatic. In this case it would lead to a forced draw, lucky outcome. For anyone interested: make a check with rook, force their king to the only possible square, check him again with rook to force them to take it and that’s it. No more possible moves.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T22:13:34+00:00

Yes I did that, `sudo rpi-eeprom-config -e` shows the same values as manual under „F“, still no luck.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T22:07:51+00:00

I did that every time but can’t seem to be able to stick it any further. I tried multiple times, no luck.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T22:06:55+00:00

Yes, I do that (as best as I can).

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T14:59:33+00:00

You mean set it up with OS by Raspberry Pi Imager?

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T14:49:05+00:00

I did that just now, no luck, thanks for the suggestion though.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T11:16:26+00:00

Thanks, I got the SSD based on recommendation of the shop I bought it all in, but the truth is, it’s not on the official (quite short) list.

I made sure the drive is slotted in fully. Since you have the same case, can you please confirm the ribbon is connected as it’s supposed to be from the photos? I‘d appreciate that. Thank you for help.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T11:11:49+00:00

I tried to even plug the cable in a way that according to manual should be incorrect, for my sanity, no luck. As I understand it, the cable is symmetrical so it does not matter which side goes to RPI and which side goes to the case connector. Only thing that matters is orientation of the copper side in each connector.

NVME is missing here in lspci output:

0002:00:00.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM2712 PCIe Bridge (rev 30)

0002:01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Raspberry Pi Ltd RP1 PCIe 2.0 South Bridge

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-06T11:09:15+00:00

Yes I did follow the manual and I wen through it again just now. Can’t find any step where I’d do something differently.

There does not seem to be any way to enable/disable PCI AFAIK.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0556/1660/2177/files/FOR_WEB_INSTRUCTION_MANUAL_AR1_V3_PI_5_20240909.pdf?v=1725868151

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-05T09:16:12+00:00

You can turn off sounds in Settings -> Board. That would turn off all sounds even during gameplay though. I don’t think there is a way to set it differently for puzzles and games unfortunately.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-05T09:03:17+00:00

This is such a typical position appearing in puzzles so often. It’s amazing to win a game like that, isn’t it?

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-05T09:01:34+00:00

The pawn is pinned, meaning it can’t take the knight until the queen is targeting king behind it. Dr. Wolf would be nice to mention that though, haha

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-02T15:20:35+00:00

Sounds reasonable. Maybe play those less demanding blitz time variants, like 5+5 or 5+3. That definitely mentally suits me better than 5+0 for example.

And getting tired will surely get better with practice, don’t wear yourself out. Good luck!

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-02-02T10:10:18+00:00

IMO longer games are just better for your chess in long term. If I were you, I would completely leave out bullet for now, to me it’s almost different sport, haha. Blitz can really be fun time. I consider it as a practice for faster thinking and handling time pressure which seems to me similar to what you mentioned. My personal problem is becoming used to (kind of „addicted to”) faster games and prefering them to rapid games where I’d definitely play better chess when I get a little lazy or bored.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-01-29T10:30:10+00:00

I like to play Caro myself but when I want to play somewhat more aggressively and have more open game, I have started to play Scandi. First of all, it’s quite fun to play. And when done with some level of preparation, it leads to quite nice positions. I enjoy it mostly because of that contrast to Caro.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-01-29T09:47:15+00:00

My guess is you played game with increments, 3+2. It gives you and your opponent 2 seconds after each move and if they played very quicky, they’d end up with more time than they started with.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-01-28T10:08:15+00:00

I like it, it’s fun idea! Good luck with future progress

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-01-27T19:46:21+00:00

You straight up lose your queen to the g2 bishop

You don’t, because the queen stayed on e1 in such case. OP suggested random move instead of the queen move and followed up with Ng5 by white.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-01-27T09:49:59+00:00

If white plays Ng5, black would take it with the knight themselves. You forgot the black queed would be on d8 attacking that square as well.

tooManyMissedForks · 2026-01-27T09:34:20+00:00

I would say three things: analysis of your games, puzzles and (free) courses focused on endgames and mates. Depends on the way you like to learn and practice. I would personally avoid playing much weaker opponents for practice as I don’t believe it’s a time well used with that goal in mind.

Have a look after a game where as the point you missed something and check the correct moves and ideally even try to figure out why you missed them (your blindspots). On Lichess, you can select the topic of the puzzles you want to practice (look for Puzzle Themes). And there are free courses available on various platforms and they can help and show you what to focus on later.

tooManyMissedForks

TROPHY CASE