Practical Tips for Using Chess365 Every Day

Chess365 is simple to operate: pick a difficulty, play White, and mate the black king in time. What decides whether it helps your chess is how you spend the few minutes around each puzzle. These are the habits I would suggest to a friend. Treat them as suggestions, not rules.

Read the Whole Line Before the First Move

The board lets you play any legal move, and that is a temptation. It is easy to start tapping and let Black show you what happens. You will learn something that way, but less than you think.

Try this instead. Before touching a piece, read the whole line in your head, including Black’s best replies. Then play it. If the king escapes, you know which step of your reading was wrong. On a mate in 2 this takes seconds. On a mate in 5 it is the whole exercise.

Look at the King Before Looking for Checks

Before searching for a check, look at the black king. Which squares can it reach, and which are already covered? Mates usually come from taking away the last free squares, not from the most forceful check.

Every puzzle in Chess365 needs every white piece, and no black piece is there only as decoration. So if one of your pieces is doing nothing in your plan, the plan is probably not the right one. Asking what each piece is there for is often the fastest way to the first move.

Do Not Rule Out Quiet Moves

The obvious first move is a check or a capture. Sometimes it is right. But the How to Play pages say it plainly: the first move is often a quiet one that gives no check and leaves the king no way out.

If every check you try lets the king slip away, look for a move that cuts off a square, or one that waits and lets Black run out of useful replies. Quiet moves are easy to overlook in your own games too, which is one reason I think these puzzles are worth doing.

Leave the King a Move

Stalemate is a draw in chess, and in Chess365 a stalemate fails the puzzle. It happens most with a queen, which covers so many squares that the king can be left with no legal move and no check.

Before a strong quiet move, ask whether Black still has a legal reply. If the answer is no and the king is not in check, it is stalemate, not a win.

Remember the Other Promotions

When a pawn promotes, the app offers queen, rook, bishop or knight. The queen is the reflex, and usually correct. But some puzzles turn on an under-promotion, often because the queen would stalemate or because a knight gives check from a square the queen cannot. If a promotion line keeps failing, try the other three pieces before giving up on the idea.

Let the Failures Teach You

When a line ends without mate, the puzzle fails and you can retry from the start, up to three times. I think of the failed attempt as the most useful part of the puzzle.

Watch where the king goes. Black defends as long as your line still forces mate and escapes once it does not, so the moment of escape marks the move where your idea broke down. On the retry, start your thinking from that move, not from the beginning.

Spend Hints on First Moves

You start with ten hints, and you earn another each time you solve the daily challenge. You can also watch an ad for one. A hint blinks the piece and the square, and then you make the move yourself.

On the first move of a longer puzzle, that one piece of information often opens the whole line, and you still have to find the rest. On the last move of a mate in 2, a hint mostly finishes the puzzle for you. I would use a hint only after a real failed attempt, and preferably early in the line.

Keep the Daily Puzzle Separate

The daily challenge is the same for everyone and changes at midnight UTC, which is 9 in the morning in Japan. It is a mate in 2, 3 or 4, never 5.

I would do the daily puzzle first, before any others, as a small fixed point in the day. It grows the streak, and it earns the hint you may want later for a harder puzzle. Anything solved afterwards is extra.

Turn Off Legal Move Markers When You Are Ready

Show legal moves is on by default and marks every square the selected piece can reach. It is kind while you get used to the board. But seeing those squares yourself is part of the skill, especially for knights. When mate in 2 starts to feel comfortable, try a week with the markers off.

Move Up When the Average Time Drops

The STATS screen shows puzzles completed, best time and average time for each difficulty. The average is the number I would watch. When your average on one difficulty falls and stays low, it is probably time for the next one.

Going from mate in 2 to mate in 3 is a bigger step than it sounds, because Black has more room to defend. Expect the first few Medium puzzles to feel slow. An interrupted puzzle is saved, and CONTINUE brings you back to it later, so there is no need to stare at one position for half an hour.

Where to Go Next

If you are still setting up, start with the getting started guide. For mate patterns from the beginning, see the beginner’s guide to checkmate puzzles. To see how the app compares with books, websites and other apps, read Chess365 vs other options, or see who the app is for. All related posts are under the Chess365 tag.

Pick one of these to try this week. Looking at the king’s squares first is a good place to start.