You can drag and drop the chess pieces above to make a move. For example, try clicking or tapping the pawn in front of the white king and moving it two squares forward. This common opening move is written as 1. e4.

As you can see, after you play a move, the page shows the name of the opening (King’s Pawn Game), the move notation (1. e4), and the number of available puzzles (16,449). But you won’t see the actual puzzles just yet. Keep playing moves until the number of puzzles drops below 300.

Once the number of puzzles drops below 300 (e.g., 49 like above screenshot), a “Show Me” link will appear. Click it to see all related puzzles.

You'll be taken to the opening's page. It will automatically scroll down to the Puzzle section, which looks like the screenshot below:

Your task is to find the best move.

The best move is usually defined by a chess engine. It can be a checkmate, a way to win material, or a strong positional idea.

In the example above, you would capture the knight with your queen (Qxf3) because it sets up a checkmate threat on the next move (Qxf7#). If Black tries to defend the mating square, you can instead capture their undefended bishop. In this case, it's the best move because it wins material.

For two main reasons:

• Solving puzzles is one of the most effective ways to improve your chess skills.
• With so many different openings in chess, you're more likely to win if you stick to openings you're familiar with—this is called your Opening Repertoire. Grandmasters do this all the time.

Use the Opening Explorer to practice your favorite openings, and reinforce your understanding by solving puzzles related to them.