The latest ChessPuzzle.net update is now live. This release focuses especially on Puzzle Academy: clearer rank progress, more purposeful workouts, improved guides, more languages, and several new skills and levels.

There are also improvements outside Puzzle Academy, including stronger analysis tools on the solution page, a calmer club page, and a new option for board coordinates.

Puzzle Academy improvements

Puzzle Academy has grown a lot over the last few years — enough that the training path can get hard to follow once you have many skills unlocked. This update is mainly about making the next step clearer: what you need for your next Academy rank, what you should practice now, and which skills matter most.

Rank Details

We added a new Rank Details page for Puzzle Academy. This page shows exactly what you need to reach your next Academy rank.

The requirements are separated into skill levels you still need to unlock and skill levels you need to master, grouped by course area. You can see which requirements are already completed, which ones are available now, and which ones are still locked behind prerequisites in the skill tree.

The page also shows your workout progress for each relevant skill level, so you can see whether you are just getting started, close to mastery, or need more practice. Filters let you switch between all requirements, completed requirements, and the remaining work.

The goal is to make rank progress concrete. Instead of wondering why you haven't reached the next rank yet, you can see exactly what's left.

Next rank workout focus

We improved the workout generator so it gives extra priority to skill levels that matter for your next rank, while still keeping workouts mixed and unlabeled. This means you still have to recognize the right motif yourself, just like in a real game, but you should now see important rank-related patterns more often.

There is also a new Next rank workout focus. When selected, about half of the workout is drawn from skill levels relevant to your next rank, including skills you need to master and key prerequisite skills.

We also adjusted the recommendation system. Puzzle Academy should now be less likely to recommend unlocking too many new skill levels in a row. If you already have several freshly unlocked skills with little workout practice, it will more often recommend a workout first, so you can consolidate those patterns before adding more.

Together, these changes make the final stretch toward the next rank less of a waiting game.

Guide improvements

Diagrams and moves can now be replayed directly inside the articles, related Puzzle Academy skills are shown more clearly, and many explanations were revised based on the professional edits Simon & Schuster made for my chess puzzle books.

The guides should now feel more like interactive lessons than static articles.

Language improvements

Puzzle Academy guides are now available in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Japanese, Indonesian, Hindi, and Arabic.

We also reviewed and improved thousands of translated chess terms and solution annotation texts. Many of these changes are small individually, but together they should make the site feel much more natural and useful for players around the world.

Other improvements

Stronger analysis on the solution page

• Perfect endgame evaluations: When a position has six or fewer pieces, we now consult an endgame tablebase on our server: a database of perfectly solved endgames. Instead of only an engine estimate, you get the exact result with best play, whether the position is winning, drawing, or losing. The browser engine keeps running alongside it, so you will often also see the precise mate, for example "Mate in 14", next to the tablebase verdict.
• Stockfish 18: The in-browser engine has been upgraded to Stockfish 18.
• Choose how many lines to see: New − and + buttons next to the engine let you show from one up to five candidate lines, so you can compare several moves at once.

Turn it all on with the engine button on any solution page, and try it on an endgame to watch the tablebase in action.

A calmer club page

The club page is now built around what needs your attention, not every record we have.

• A shorter club page: The long Recent Tasks, Members, and Invitations tables are gone. In their place, there are now two compact summary panels. Coaches see a Coach attention panel with counts of pending tasks, tasks pending more than 30 days, recently completed tasks, students without Premium, and students whose Premium expires within 30 days. Admins see a combined Members panel with member and coach totals, Premium seat status, and pending invitation count.
• Two new dedicated pages: Full member and invitation lists moved to separate pages. The Members page has paging, a name search, and a role filter, so you can find someone in a 200-member club without scrolling through a long table.
• Translated: The whole feature is now available in every language ChessPuzzle.net supports.

Board coordinates

You can now choose where to display board coordinates. The new Outside option places the coordinates outside the board for improved readability.

New Puzzle Academy content

This update also adds several new skills and levels. A few highlights:

Tactics: Garbage Collection, Level 3

In the Tactics course, there is now a third level for the Garbage Collection skill. These puzzles are about positions where both sides threaten material-winning captures, a situation that can often be confusing and lead to many blunders. Level 3 includes more advanced examples with intermediate moves and intermediate checks.

Here is a typical example:

The white queen and the black bishop are attacked. White can win with 1.axb4 Qxa1, followed by the intermediate move 2.Qxd8! Rxd8 3.Rxa1. After the dust has settled, White is a piece up.

Checkmate Patterns: Checkmate using a pin, Level 3

We continue this frequently overlooked checkmate pattern with level 3, featuring checkmate in three moves.

Here is a nice example:

White can force checkmate with the queen sacrifice 1.Qxf7+!! Kxf7 2.Bc4+ Bd5 3.Bxd5#. The bishop cannot be captured by the knight, because the knight is pinned by the white rook on f1. This is easy to overlook, even when the final position is checkmate.

Defence: Perpetual check

In the Defence course, you can now learn and practice perpetual checks. There are four different levels, depending on the piece giving perpetual check: queen, rook, knight, or bishop.

Here is a typical example:

The white queen seems to defend the king, but Black can give perpetual check with 1...Qd1+ 2.Qg1 Qf3+ 3.Qg2 Qd1+ 4.Qg1 Qf3+.

Attacking: Weak back-rank, Level 4

In this skill, you can exploit the weak back-rank of your opponent by forcing checkmate or winning material. In the new level 4, the threat of back-rank mate leads to checkmate or a winning material advantage in five moves.

Here is a famous example featuring world champion Capablanca:

Click the diagram to solve this puzzle.

Try the update

Head to Puzzle Academy to see your next-rank progress, open the new Rank Details page, or start a Next rank focused workout. You can also open any solution page and turn on the engine to try the improved analysis tools.

As always, let me know what you think.

Happy solving!