Chess365 vs Other Ways to Practise Checkmate Puzzles: Lichess, Chess.com, ChessTempo and Polgár's Book

If you want to stop missing mates in your own games, the usual advice is to solve checkmate puzzles. There is no shortage of places to do that. There are large free puzzle sites, paid memberships, specialist trainers and thick printed books. Chess365 is one of the options, and I made it, so please read this with that in mind. I will try to be fair about what each one does well and where it is simply a different kind of tool.

What Chess365 Is

Chess365 is a checkmate puzzle app for iPhone, iPad and Android. It holds 4,000 puzzles, 1,000 each at mate in 2, 3, 4 and 5. You always play White. The puzzles were generated and checked by the app’s own solver: the shortest mate is exactly the stated length, the key move is unique, every white piece is needed, no black piece is there for decoration, and the material is something a real game could show.

You play the moves instead of reading the answer. Any legal move is accepted, right or wrong. Black answers on its own with the toughest defence while your line still forces mate, and escapes once it no longer does. A line that ends without mate fails, stalemate fails too, and you can retry up to three times. Promotion lets you choose the piece, because under-promotion is sometimes the answer.

Around that there is a daily challenge that is the same for everyone, a streak, hints that blink the piece and the square but leave the move to you, and stats per difficulty. It works offline, needs no account and has no ranking or puzzle rating. It is free with ads, and a one-time purchase removes them. There is no subscription.

I should be clear about one thing. These are computer-generated training puzzles. They are sound, but they are not classic problems by a named composer.

Option 1: Lichess Puzzles

Lichess is a free and open-source chess server, run with the help of volunteers and donations, and it shows no ads. Its puzzle trainer is very large. According to its open database page, the puzzles were taken from hundreds of millions of analysed games and re-checked with Stockfish, and there are more than six million of them. Each attempt counts as a Glicko-2 rated game between you and the puzzle, so you have a puzzle rating that moves up and down.

The themes page is where it gets interesting for mate practice. You can pick Mate in 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 or more, and named patterns such as back rank mate, smothered mate, Anastasia’s mate and Boden’s mate. There are also timed modes. Puzzle Storm gives you three minutes to solve as many as you can.

Honestly, if you want free, rated, unlimited puzzles from real games, it is hard to beat. The difference from Chess365 is mainly shape. Lichess puzzles come from game positions and cover every kind of tactic, and you need a connection. Chess365 is only forced mates, offline, with no rating at all.

Option 2: Chess.com Puzzles

Chess.com’s support pages say a free Basic account gets three rated puzzles per day, plus one Puzzle Rush and one Puzzle Battle. A Premium membership removes those limits. Your puzzle rating goes up when you solve and down when you miss. Puzzle Rush gives you three or five minutes to solve as many as you can, and Puzzle Battle is a race against another player.

If you already play on Chess.com, its puzzles fit naturally next to your games and lessons. If you only want mate practice, three puzzles a day on the free plan may feel short, and the full set needs a subscription.

Option 3: ChessTempo

ChessTempo is a training site that many serious players use for tactics. Its app description mentions more than 100,000 tactics problems. Paid tiers are monthly subscriptions, and some features, such as custom sets built around a motif or problems taken from your own games, are for paying members.

It is a good choice if you want depth: tactics of every kind, ratings, and sets you can tune to your weaknesses. It covers far more than mates.

Option 4: László Polgár’s Book

“Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games” by László Polgár, with an introduction by Bruce Pandolfini, is a famous brick of a book at 1,104 pages. The publisher lists 306 mates in one, 3,412 mates in two and 744 mates in three, along with endgames and combinations, with solutions at the back.

For mate practice in particular, that is a remarkable amount of material in one volume. It needs no battery and no connection. The difference is the answer. If your second move is wrong, the book cannot show you how Black would have defended. You only learn that your line is not the printed one.

A Side by Side Table

	Chess365	Lichess puzzles	Chess.com puzzles	ChessTempo	Polgár’s book
Focus	Forced mates only	All tactics, mate themes available	All tactics	All tactics	Mostly mates in 1 to 3
Mate lengths	Mate in 2, 3, 4, 5	Mate in 1 to 5 or more	Varies	Varies	Mate in 1, 2, 3
Where puzzles come from	Generated and verified by the app’s solver	Real games, checked by Stockfish	Not covered here	Not covered here	Selected by the author
Puzzle rating	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Works offline	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Cost	Free with ads, one-time purchase removes ads	Free, no ads	3 rated puzzles a day free, Premium removes the limit	Free account, paid tiers for more	Price of the book

When Another Option Is the Better Choice

You want a rating and a large free pool. Lichess is the obvious answer. It is free, it has no ads, and it has a theme for nearly everything.

You want every kind of tactic, not only mates. Every Chess365 puzzle ends in mate. There are no puzzles where the goal is to win a piece or survive a bad position. Lichess, Chess.com or ChessTempo cover the whole range.

You want mate in 1, or longer than mate in 5. Chess365 starts at mate in 2 and stops at mate in 5. Lichess and the Polgár book start at mate in 1, and Lichess goes further than 5.

You want classic composed problems. Chess365’s puzzles come from a solver. A book of composed problems, or Polgár, is the better place for that.

You want to play people. Chess365 is not a game against anyone. Lichess, Chess.com or a local club is what you want.

You do not know how the pieces move yet. Learn the moves first. Our StudyX Mindsports has beginner lessons for chess, shogi and go, and a teacher at a club is even better.

When Chess365 Makes Sense

Chess365 fits best if you want only forced mates, ordered by length, available with or without a connection, and you want the board to tell you when your reading is wrong by letting Black defend. It also fits if you like the habit of one daily puzzle and a streak, and prefer not to have a rating watching you. If you play shogi as well, Shogi365 is the same idea for tsume shogi.

None of these excludes the others. A Lichess theme when you are at a desk, Polgár on the shelf and a few Chess365 puzzles on the train can all live together.

If you are new to mate puzzles, start with checkmate puzzles for beginners. For the app, the getting started guide walks through the first session, the tips post covers daily use, and who Chess365 is for describes where it fits. All Chess365 posts are under the chess365 tag, and the app page is at Chess365.