Never Too Late for Checkmate

Started chess as an adult and worried you are behind? You are not. Kids' books feel babyish and grandmaster books feel like homework. This is the middle path: 100 mate-in-two puzzles from real games, rated 400-799, sorted easy to hard, every answer explained.

Starting chess as an adult is nothing to apologise for. Plenty of people learn the moves later in life, and the hard part is rarely the game itself. It is finding the right book. Picture books with cartoon pawns were never meant for you, and dense manuals assume you have played for years. This collection sits between the two: real positions, plain explanations, and no talking down.

Mate in two is the first real step from seeing one move to thinking two moves ahead. You play a move that forces the issue, your opponent replies, and you deliver mate. The puzzles come from real online games, rated 400-799 on the standard online puzzle scale, and run from easiest to hardest in three stages: Warm-Up, Steady and Challenge.

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

A gentle hint sits under each diagram to point you in the right direction, and the answer waits on the very next screen with a short, plain explanation of why the mate works. No flipping to the back, no hunting for solutions.

Instead of one main line, each solution walks through every defence your opponent can try, so you see why the mate holds no matter how they wriggle. Every position was checked to have exactly one first move that forces mate, then confirmed again by a chess engine.

It reads on Kindle, phone and tablet, so it fits into a lunch break or a quiet evening. Go at your own pace. Every puzzle you solve is a small win, and the start of a year is as good a time as any to begin collecting them.