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Games & strategy · course 9 of 105

Chess: See the Mate, Win the Piece

Learn the FIDE rules behind check and mate, then find the mate in 1, win material with forks, pins and skewers, find mate in 2, and name ten openings from their first moves.

4 modules

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What it teaches

The chess rules behind checks and mates (check, checkmate, stalemate, castling, en passant, promotion and the move notation, quoted from the FIDE Laws of Chess), then three skills on a board drawn in text: finding the checkmate in 1 (10 positions), winning material with a fork, a pin or a skewer and finding a mate in 2 (12 positions), and naming 10 openings from their first moves (or giving the move that makes a named opening). The AI asks 3 questions, places you, shows a short card per module, then gives you one position at a time. Every position has one best answer (the only mate, or the move Stockfish ranks first by at least 3 pawns; see Honest limits).

For club and online players who know how the pieces move and want the patterns to stick. Not a full chess course: it can’t judge your own games, and it doesn’t teach endgames, plans or opening theory beyond the names.

How long

42 items. About 20-30 rounds for a confident player up to about 50-70 for a beginner, plus a 12-item final: 1-2 sessions (estimate, not timed with a real student). The tutor gives a one-line save code at the end of each session.

The modules

4 modules, drilled one item at a time.

  1. M0

    The rules

    The rules: check, checkmate, stalemate, castling, en passant, promotion and move notation

  2. M1

    Mate in 1

    Find the one move that gives checkmate in 1

  3. M2

    Tactics: forks, pins, skewers, mate in 2

    Win material with a fork, a pin or a skewer, or find a mate in 2

  4. M3

    Openings

    Name an opening from its first moves, or give the move that makes a named opening

Before it teaches, it asks

  1. 1
    How do you play chess now (never, casual games, online, a club), and which do you want most: spotting mates, winning pieces with tactics, or knowing the openings?
  2. 2
    White to move: find the move that gives checkmate (mate in 1). FEN: 6k1/5ppp/8/8/8/8/5PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1
    Show the code it asks about (10 lines)a b c d e f g h8 . . . . . . k . 87 . . . . . p p p 76 . . . . . . . . 65 . . . . . . . . 54 . . . . . . . . 43 . . . . . . . . 32 . . . . . P P P 21 . . . R . . K . 1a b c d e f g h
  3. 3
    White to move: find the move that wins the most material. FEN: 8/5p2/6k1/1R3p2/8/3N3r/3K4/8 w - - 0 1
    Show the code it asks about (10 lines)a b c d e f g h8 . . . . . . . . 87 . . . . . p . . 76 . . . . . . k . 65 . R . . . p . . 54 . . . . . . . . 43 . . . N . . . r 32 . . . K . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . 1a b c d e f g h

What’s exact, and what isn’t

Show

Straight from the course’s own notes.

Rules (M0)
Every question is built from the FIDE Laws of Chess “taking effect from 1 January 2023” (approved by the FIDE General Assembly on 07/08/2022), handbook page read 2026-10-13. A script checks each quote word for word on a saved copy of the page and does not re-fetch it. The Laws are FIDE’s text: the course quotes short passages with article numbers.
Mate in 1 (M1)
The python-chess library (version 1.11.2) plays every legal move in each position; in all 10 exactly one is checkmate, and that is the key. The “King’s squares” lines in the working and the 6 wrong answers (a check that isn’t mate, or a stalemate) are computed the same way. The positions are composed or found by a random search, not taken from real games.
Tactics (M2)
A fork, pin or skewer position is kept only if exactly one move in it has that structure and Stockfish 19 (depth 20) ranks that move first, scores it at least 3 pawns better than the next-best move, and scores the next-best move as no more than +1.50. Mate in 2: python-chess tries every first move and every reply; exactly one first move forces mate in 2 in each of the 3 positions, and Stockfish agrees. The “Engine line” in a Working is Stockfish’s line at that depth. The 5 wrong answers are checks or captures proven worse (by the engine’s score, or by a reply that stops the mate).
Openings (M3)
Names and lines are read from the lichess-org/chess-openings data (CC0), files fetched 2026-10-13 and saved. Find-the-move keys are checked against every legal move: exactly one gives a line with that exact name. These are lichess’s names; the course doesn’t claim they are the only names in use.
Honest limits
“wins the most material” and “one best move” in M2 are Stockfish’s verdict at depth 20, not a proof, and the labels fork, pin and skewer are the narrow definitions (a knight fork of two of king, queen and rook; a rook or bishop pinning a more valuable queen or rook to the king; a rook, bishop or queen attacking a king or queen with a lesser piece, not a pawn, behind it). M3 is a memory module, so its card is the table the items test. The course can’t tell whether a position from your own game has a tactic.
Not in it yet
Mate in 3 or more, other tactics (discovered attacks, double check, deflection), other mating patterns, endgames, opening variations and plans, draws by repetition and the clock rules, drilling castling and en passant on positions (they are rules questions only).