No More Squinting

If the pieces on your phone look like ants, this one is for you. Every screen holds one big, clear board and a single job: find the move that ends the game. 100 mate-in-one puzzles from real online games, rated 750-899, sorted easy to hard, every answer explained.

The whole book is built around one idea: the board should be easy to see. Each screen holds a single position and nothing else competing for space - no second diagram squeezed in beside it, no crowded text. The board is drawn large with clear pieces, and a short hint sits underneath. A tablet shows it best, where the board is bigger still, but it reads comfortably on a phone or a Kindle too.

Every puzzle is a forced mate in one: find the single move that ends the game. The 100 puzzles are arranged in three stages, from easiest to hardest - Warm-Up, Steady and Challenge - and rated 750-899 on the standard online puzzle scale, a comfortable level for advanced beginners and anyone who knows how the pieces move.

The puzzles are mixed on purpose: two in a row never use the same kind of piece for the winning move (rooks and queens count as one), so you solve each one by reading the board, not by repeating the last answer.

When you have found the move, or simply want to know, tap through. The answer waits on the very next screen with a short, plain explanation of why the mate works. No flipping to the back of the book, no hunting for solutions.

Every puzzle has exactly one first move that forces mate. Each one was checked by exhaustive search and confirmed again by a chess engine, and any position with a second answer was thrown out, so the move you find is the move that is there.

It suits an unhurried few puzzles after lunch or before bed: no clock, no opponent waiting, just one clear board at a time.

Within the Big Board Checkmates series, this is the first book rated 750-899, in a fixed layout for Kindle, phone and tablet.