How Many Chess Puzzles Should I Do A Day?

There are several ways through which players can reach the desired level in chess but they are rarely reached without having players facing challenges.

Are there, though, better ways to develop the skills required to overcome the challenges chess puzzles offer? Or are the puzzles the very way through which players develop their game?

Puzzles help players develop a series of skills that are fundamental for them to reach higher ratings. That is because, in many puzzles, players face situations that will most definitely repeat when they play real opponents in matches.

As a matter of fact, creators often seek challenging situations in real matches when designing new puzzles.

Why Should I Play Puzzles Daily?

Playing puzzles may seem like a simple free-time activity, but for many chess players, it is a formidable way to improve their game.

With all the skills they help develop, chess puzzles have become one of the fastest and most efficient ways through which one can become better. It is also common for players to find difficulty in beating challenges when puzzles reach a more difficult level.

That is mainly because the very evolution of chess puzzle difficulty is meant to help players develop specific skills that are deeply related to the abilities of that level.

It doesn’t seem to make much sense for untrained players to face puzzles that are designed to develop high visualization skills, as they haven’t reached that level yet.

So, keeping in mind that different levels of mastery call for different numbers of puzzles players should face daily, we can separate the answer to the main question into three ranges: beginners, experienced, and advanced.

How Many Chess Puzzles A Day?

If you are taking your first steps into the infinite universe of chess, then you might want to take it easy. There’s already so much to study and discover that the practical steps of your learning should be taken carefully.

For that, limit your daily puzzle dosage to 10-15. The point here is not to do as many puzzles as you can but to improve your skills and reduce the time taken per puzzle.

It’s recommended that beginners refrain from practicing chess for more than one hour a day as the learning curve should drastically flatten.

However, as you develop your skills and puzzles become easier, move on to playing more puzzles per day. Also, as the difficulty of puzzles normally rises, there should be another moment in which beating them may get hard once again.

Should that moment arrive, reduce the number of daily puzzles and focus on the time taken.

There is no limit to how many puzzles you can play a day when you master the sport, but they tend to become less interesting than playing highly rated opponents.

However helpful, puzzles reflect only a few aspects of the real deal, so don’t forget to include a few matches in your study every now and then.