A puzzle book is one of the best things a club player can own: hundreds of positions, each with one clear answer. Yet many of us flick through one, glance at a diagram, half-see a move and turn to the answers. That trains very little. Here is a way of working that makes each diagram count.
Choose a book at the right level
A good puzzle book for you is one where you solve most positions, but not at a glance. If you get almost everything in seconds, the book is too easy; if you are stuck on most, it is too hard and you will only learn to read answers. As a rough guide, aim for books where you solve about seven in ten with some effort.
Many books grow harder from chapter to chapter, or sort their puzzles by theme: forks, pins, mates, endings. Themed chapters are good for learning a pattern; mixed chapters are closer to a game, where nobody tells you what to look for.
Set up the position, or see it clearly
Look at the diagram long enough to know where every piece stands. Before you look for a move, check:
- Who is to move. Books print it under the diagram. Getting it wrong wastes the whole puzzle.
- What is attacked, on both sides.
- Where the kings are, and which squares around them are weak.
If the diagram is hard to read, set it up on a board. That is not cheating; seeing the position correctly is part of the job.
Solve the whole line, then write it down
Decide on your answer as if you were going to play it over the board. Not just the first move: the main reply, your next move, and why it wins. "Rook takes, something happens" is not an answer. Write the line down, or say it aloud, before you check.
Give yourself a limit. A few minutes is enough for most book puzzles; a hard study may deserve longer. Without a limit, it is easy to drift into guessing.
Check honestly
Compare your line with the book's, move by move:
- Right first move and right reason: solved.
- Right first move, wrong idea: count it as missed. You found the move by luck, or by shape, and the next one like it will catch you.
- A different move that also works: check it carefully, ideally with an engine. Books do sometimes miss a second solution, but far more often the other move has a hole.
Mark each puzzle with a tick, a cross or a question mark in pencil, or keep a list.
Come back to the ones you missed
The puzzles you got wrong are the most valuable pages in the book. They show the patterns you do not yet see. Go back to them a day later, then a few days after that, then a week later. When you solve one at a glance, it has become part of your chess.
This is also the idea behind working through the same set of puzzles several times, each time faster, which many players use with a book they know well.
Doing it with GreyChess
If the book is a PDF or ePub you own, you can open it in GreyChess: each diagram is read into a live board beside the page, and N and P step to the next and previous diagram. Play your answer on the board, then play the book's own line, which is fitted to the position.
For a PDF, a chapter can be made into a course: its diagrams become positions to solve, each answered by the book's move where its lines give one, or else Stockfish's. The positions then come back as flashcards, a few new ones a day, so the ones you miss return until you know them.
A week with a puzzle book
- Each day: ten to twenty new puzzles, solved fully and checked.
- Each day: the misses from earlier days that are due again.
- Each week: a look back at your crosses. Do they share a theme? If most are knight forks or back-rank mates, a themed chapter on that pattern is your next step.
Twenty minutes a day with one good book will do more for your tactics than an hour of skimming three.