Puzzles from Grandmaster games

Grandmaster puzzles are the most original part of Chesspuzzle.club. They come from Grandmaster tournament games, with an average Elo of 2600 or above, published every week by The Week in Chess. Every position is the moment a champion went wrong: your job is to find the sequence that punishes the mistake, the same one Stockfish found. Two things set them apart from a classic puzzle: they often accept more than one solution, and the advantage to be won is often strategic — more space, more pressure, a better-placed piece — whereas a puzzle usually comes down to winning material.

How a Grandmaster puzzle is born

1. Import: every week the new tournament games arrive from The Week in Chess, the weekly collection of games from the main international tournaments.
2. Analysis: Stockfish examines them move by move and flags the positions where the side to move gains an advantage of at least 1.8 points: below that threshold nothing decisive happened. The selection favours positions up to around 9 points, where finding the right move still teaches you something.
3. Solutions: for each position the engine calculates the main winning line and up to three secondary lines, each with the opponent's best reply.
4. Checks: before publication, automatic checks confirm that the puzzle is offered from the right side and that the evaluation holds up.

Why they are different from the usual puzzles

Not just combinations

Fewer than 1% are forced mates and more than half end with an advantage below three points. Often the right move wins no material: it keeps the pressure, gains space, improves a piece or prepares an attack. The selection criterion is the engine evaluation, not the material won, and that is what makes them strategic as well as tactical.

More than one valid solution

Secondary lines are accepted. From the second move onwards, if you play a move that is not in the solution tree, a real-time analysis checks whether the advantage remains decisive: in that case the move counts, with a 20% reduced Elo gain. Few sites accept more than one solution when there is no mate.

The real game behind the puzzle

Once the puzzle is solved you can review the full game it comes from, with the engine analysis and the line you followed highlighted.

Difficulty that updates itself

Every attempt updates your Elo rating and the puzzle's estimated difficulty: it rises when players get it wrong, it falls when they solve it.

The intermediate step: puzzles from Master games

Same format, with Master tournament games at an average Elo between 2200 and 2550, also updated every week. They are the step before the Grandmaster puzzles, meant for intermediate-level training.