1/8/2016 – QM3: A game ends with the move 6...Nf1 mate – find moves that achieve this. That was our New Year's Puzzle. Solutions were sent in from around the globe – hundreds in all. Many letters were quite interesting, so we bring you a substantial selection. One of them has won the historic prize. Finally the coin problem by John Nunn: the solution is a five-second eight-word sentence that any ten-year-old can understand.

1/2/2016 – First of all a very Happy New Year to all our faithful readers, and best wishes for happiness and success in the year 2016. To celebrate and to close our Christmas puzzle week we bring you a final problem, one that is easy to formulate but is seriously difficult to solve. This is your chance to compete with some of the world's strongest players and problem experts. And to win a prize with historical significance.

12/31/2015 – In 1999, in the very first installment, we gave you a proof game problem as a Christmas puzzle, one that has occupied generations of chess players. Such problems require a great deal of lateral thinking, and are not readily accessible to computer analysis. This month we nostalgically reconnected with an old friend (from the previous millennium) who specializes in such problems. Have fun with Stuart Rachels' quick mates.

12/30/2015 – This year was the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Musing over the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, three years before, Pal Benko found a well-known chess problem that reflects the retreat of the French forces and the attacks by Cossack Hussards. It was composed by Alexander Petrov in 1824, but is somewhat flawed. Our problemist friend could not resist improving on it.

12/29/2015 – Here's an interesting problem: say you have found some moves somewhere, in coordinate notation without piece names – e.g. 1.h7g5 d8g5 2.b5d5 d1c2 etc. Can one reconstruct the original supposedly meaningful position to which they apply? Azlan Iqbal, who has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, retraces his thought processes when he tried, in this unique exercise in forensic chess. Help him and you can win a special prize.

12/28/2015 – In our previous puzzle article we showed you a complex endgame which Garry Kasparov had shown a young chess prodigy. The former World Champion also explained a number of important endgame concepts to the lad, who went on to annotate the game for us. If you go through his notes carefully you will learn quite a bit about chess endings and tempos. Don't miss it – it will add some Elo points to your rating!

12/27/2015 – In the previous installment we showed you a study that Garry Kasparov gave to a ten-year-old prodigy to solve – in his mind. Today we bring you the solution and tell you how 2600+ GMs fared with the same task. And then there is a second study which Garry gave the lad to solve, one that will help you understand some important principles and improve your calculation skills.

12/26/2015 – Yesterday, on Christmas day, we showed you a talent test we have been conducting for years; decades almost; with young chess prodigies. The initial position had six pieces on the board and was fairly easy to solve. But shifting the white king to a different square made it really hard. Today we bring you the solution and tell you how our prodigies fared with it. And give you a new talent test, provided by Garry Kasparov.

12/25/2015 – Another year passes, with more chess than ever before. As always we end the year with our traditional Christmas puzzles – this year for the sixteenth time. We start the week with a simple talent test we have been using for decades and recently revived with young players. Some may know it already, but those who don't will see if they can match the brightest young talent we have today.

8/29/2015 – Are you interested in chess problems? Many-movers, help and selfmate? In the solutions to the second part of his series John Nunn explains how these problems work and how the mind of an world-class problemist goes about finding the solution. You should replay John's wonderfully lucid explanations to get a taste of the bizarre beauty of chess problems.

8/26/2015 – In a two-part article on the competition (where he finished second) John Nunn presented a selection of the problems and studies that had to be solved under ‘school exam’ conditions in two days of six sessions. Today he shows us the thought processes that go through a solver's mind and presents full and detailed solutions to the first three compositions in his unique didactic style.

8/20/2015 – After the first day of the 2015 Championship our reporter was in the lead, but faced a stiff challenge on the second day from the reigning champion Kacper Piorun. In the end the young Polish solver secured the title by just half a point, while John Nunn won silver medal and took gold in the Seniors category, thirty points clear of the field. We must remind you: John turned sixty this year.

8/19/2015 – The 2015 Championship was staged in a beautiful lakeside hotel in Poland, with the world's best chess problem solvers being tested to the utmost in six solving sessions spread over two days – with the problems to be solved under ‘school exam’ conditions. One of the top competitors is grandmaster John Nunn, who sent us a report with a selection of championship compositions.

5/12/2015 – Some days ago we gave you a five-piece endgame puzzle in which you had to find the only square for the white king that forced a win. In addition there was a direct mate in 203 moves to solve – one in which every single move was forced. Today John Nunn, in his inimitable style, explains the solution to this mind-boggling record chess problem. Take a deep breath.

5/9/2015 – With the advent of tablebases that know every legal position with a given material configuration, giving you a five-piece problem is fairly pointless. The temptation is too great to fire up your chess engine and wait the millisecond it requires to look up the solution. So we have a weekend puzzle for you that is slightly more devious – and tell you about the longest direct mate ever recorded.

2/6/2015 – Now they are composing problems that fulfil basic aesthetic criteria! Chesthetica, a program written by Azlan Iqbal, is churning out mate in three constructs by the hundreds, and the author is posting them in a very pleasing format on Youtube. How long will Chesthetica theoretically be able to generate new three-movers? Quite possibly for tens of thousands of years.

2/1/2015 – On the first day of the year we give you four puzzles for a New Year 2015 think fest – and three weeks for you to work on them. As usual there was brisk participation with obvious enjoyment on the part of our readers. Today we present the solutions and announce the prize winners. They get ChessBase software with personalized dedications from some seriously strong players. Did you win?

1/25/2015 – Today is the final day to submit your solutions to 2015 New Year's Puzzle Contest. To get you in the mood we show you the final twelve solutions to our Christmas puzzles, which we published in the week from December 25–31, 2014. Some are deep and quite stunning, the ones from the December 31 "Curious Chess" section are just entertaining. We wish you a fine Sunday of problem solving.

1/22/2015 – In the week from December 25–31 2014 we presented our traditional Christmas puzzles, and on the 1st of January our 2015 New Year's Puzzle Contest. The closing date for submission of solutions to the latter was set at January 21, 2015. We are extending this to Sunday the 25th. In the meantime you may be interested to see part one of the solutions to the Christmas Week's puzzles.

1/1/2015 – In the last week of 2014, as every year, we celebrated a week of chess puzzles, this year drawing from problems and studies we had published fifteen years ago. Today we give you four puzzles that are part of our New Year 2015 contest. You have three weeks to work on them, and there are valuable prizes to win. For today we wish all our readers a Happy New Year!

12/31/2014 – Our friend, famous chess composer GM Pal Benko, got into the New Year spirit by sending us seven little problems to solve. They are all miniatures, requiring mate in three moves. And together they spell out HNY-2015. The positions look deceptively easy, but some have very clever solutions that are not easy to find. All are cook free. With Pal we wish our readers a Happy New Year 2015!

12/31/2014 – New Year's Eve is a time for light-headed celebration, for Champagne and fireworks, for parties and laughter. In this spirit we bring you the seventh installment of our Christmas puzzle with a number of curious chess problems which are not hard to solve but require a keen sense of humour. They all come from an author who inspired our 2002 Christmas column. Enjoy.

12/30/2014 – As mentioned before, artistic endgame studies used to be great fun, providing human brains hours of solving pleasure. Until the day when this was replaced by the less challenging action of pressing Alt-F2 in a computer program. In part two of this article our senior editor Frederic Friedel helps the flesh-and-blood thought processes along with some useful solving hints.

12/29/2014 – Chess endgame studies used to be great fun, especially the creative and artistic variety that brought hours of solving pleasure. These days you simply enter the position in a computer and hit "Go". The solution usually appears in milliseconds, giving you milliseconds of enjoyment. Why don't you try to work with a chessboard and pieces. Here are two studies with solving instructions.