🏆 Best 1000 Puzzles by Theme 🧩

Below you find the best (= highest popularity score, ordered by number of plays) 1000 puzzles for each of the available themes 🎯, sourced from the lichess puzzles database 📊.

The CSV files contain two columns - the PGN of the puzzle, and the corresponding tags 🏷️ - and are compatible with the Anki-Chess-2.0 template 🗂️.

If you want to generate your own puzzles, filtered by popularity, rating, number of plays and puzzle themes, you can do so within the "Puzzle Database" tab of chessli2 ♟️.

Name	Description	Link
Advanced pawn	One of your pawns is deep into the opponent position, maybe threatening to promote.	Link
Advantage	Seize your chance to get a decisive advantage. (200cp ≤ eval ≤ 600cp)	Link
Anastasia's mate	A knight and rook or queen team up to trap the opposing king between the side of the board and a friendly piece.	Link
Arabian mate	A knight and a rook team up to trap the opposing king on a corner of the board.	Link
Attacking f2 or f7	An attack focusing on the f2 or f7 pawn, such as in the fried liver opening.	Link
Attraction	An exchange or sacrifice encouraging or forcing an opponent piece to a square that allows a follow-up tactic.	Link
Back rank mate	Checkmate the king on the home rank, when it is trapped there by its own pieces.	Link
Bishop endgame	An endgame with only bishops and pawns.	Link
Boden's mate	Two attacking bishops on criss-crossing diagonals deliver mate to a king obstructed by friendly pieces.	Link
Castling	Bring the king to safety, and deploy the rook for attack.	Link
Capture the defender	Removing a piece that is critical to defence of another piece, allowing the now undefended piece to be captured on a following move.	Link
Crushing	Spot the opponent blunder to obtain a crushing advantage. (eval ≥ 600cp)	Link
Double bishop mate	Two attacking bishops on adjacent diagonals deliver mate to a king obstructed by friendly pieces.	Link
Dovetail mate	A queen delivers mate to an adjacent king, whose only two escape squares are obstructed by friendly pieces.	Link
Equality	Come back from a losing position, and secure a draw or a balanced position. (eval ≤ 200cp)	Link
Kingside attack	An attack of the opponent's king, after they castled on the king side.	Link
Clearance	A move, often with tempo, that clears a square, file or diagonal for a follow-up tactical idea.	Link
Defensive move	A precise move or sequence of moves that is needed to avoid losing material or another advantage.	Link
Deflection	A move that distracts an opponent piece from another duty that it performs, such as guarding a key square. Sometimes also called "overloading".	Link
Discovered attack	Moving a piece (such as a knight), that previously blocked an attack by a long range piece (such as a rook), out of the way of that piece.	Link
Double check	Checking with two pieces at once, as a result of a discovered attack where both the moving piece and the unveiled piece attack the opponent's king.	Link
Endgame	A tactic during the last phase of the game.	Link
En passant	A tactic involving the en passant rule, where a pawn can capture an opponent pawn that has bypassed it using its initial two-square move.	Link
Exposed king	A tactic involving a king with few defenders around it, often leading to checkmate.	Link
Fork	A move where the moved piece attacks two opponent pieces at once.	Link
Hanging piece	A tactic involving an opponent piece being undefended or insufficiently defended and free to capture.	Link
Hook mate	Checkmate with a rook, knight, and pawn along with one enemy pawn to limit the enemy king's escape.	Link
Interference	Moving a piece between two opponent pieces to leave one or both opponent pieces undefended, such as a knight on a defended square between two rooks.	Link
Intermezzo	Instead of playing the expected move, first interpose another move posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer. Also known as "Zwischenzug" or "In between".	Link
Knight endgame	An endgame with only knights and pawns.	Link
Long	Three moves to win.	Link
Master games	Puzzles from games played by titled players.	Link
Master vs Master games	Puzzles from games between two titled players.	Link
Checkmate	Win the game with style.	Link
Mate in 1	Deliver checkmate in one move.	Link
Mate in 2	Deliver checkmate in two moves.	Link
Mate in 3	Deliver checkmate in three moves.	Link
Mate in 4	Deliver checkmate in four moves.	Link
Mate in 5 or more	Figure out a long mating sequence.	Link
Middlegame	A tactic during the second phase of the game.	Link
One-move puzzle	A puzzle that is only one move long.	Link
Opening	A tactic during the first phase of the game.	Link
Pawn endgame	An endgame with only pawns.	Link
Pin	A tactic involving pins, where a piece is unable to move without revealing an attack on a higher value piece.	Link
Promotion	Promote one of your pawn to a queen or minor piece.	Link
Queen endgame	An endgame with only queens and pawns.	Link
Queen and Rook	An endgame with only queens, rooks and pawns.	Link
Queenside attack	An attack of the opponent's king, after they castled on the queen side.	Link
Quiet move	A move that does neither make a check or capture, nor an immediate threat to capture, but does prepare a more hidden unavoidable threat for a later move.	Link
Rook endgame	An endgame with only rooks and pawns.	Link
Sacrifice	A tactic involving giving up material in the short-term, to gain an advantage again after a forced sequence of moves.	Link
Short	Two moves to win.	Link
Skewer	A motif involving a high value piece being attacked, moving out the way, and allowing a lower value piece behind it to be captured or attacked, the inverse of a pin.	Link
Smothered mate	A checkmate delivered by a knight in which the mated king is unable to move because it is surrounded (or smothered) by its own pieces.	Link
Super GM games	Puzzles from games played by the best players in the world.	Link
Trapped piece	A piece is unable to escape capture as it has limited moves.	Link
Underpromotion	Promotion to a knight, bishop, or rook.	Link
Very long	Four moves or more to win.	Link
X-Ray attack	A piece attacks or defends a square, through an enemy piece.	Link
Zugzwang	The opponent is limited in the moves they can make, and all moves worsen their position.	Link