Free daily endgame puzzles

How an endgame puzzle works

Ten endgames a day, each one a position where a single move keeps the result: nine you are already winning, and one lost chess game where one move holds the draw. Four from chess, and one each from Go, Othello, checkers, Connect Four, Quarto and dots and boxes. None of them is checked against a key: the position is played out against an engine that defends as well as it can, and the round ends when the game does.

Every board here but one starts from a won position with the winning line already narrowed to a single first move; Swindle starts from a lost one, and its single move saves a draw. Find it and the engine takes the other side and defends as stubbornly as it can, so you have to keep finding the right move until the game is over. A wrong move is not taken back and is not announced: the game simply goes on, and a position that was won is now something else.

That is what separates these from a tactics trainer. A move the key did not list but which still wins, wins. A mistake costs you the game rather than a hint. The board ranks solvers by how many attempts the solve took, so a position you get wrong can be replayed, and the replay counts.

Where to start

Four if you want the shortest one: a single column keeps a won Connect Four position. Mate if you have done chess tactics before. Turn and Chain reward habits that are the opposite of what looks natural, flipping the fewest discs and leaving a free box alone, and are the ones to save for when the others feel easy.